About Our Office

To enhance, improve and expand the diversity of the medical center (and the university) student population.

To advocate for a diverse faculty and to encourage the recruitment of minority faculty.

To encourage exceptional under represented and economically disadvantaged high school and college students along a career path that leads to the Medical Sciences. This effort will involve developing strong ties with the Danforth campus.

To help foster an environment within our academic community that supports the personal achievements and development of outstanding students and faculty of diverse backgrounds.

To develop a robust clinical outreach program/health planning for under served groups in the surrounding community that in effect creates a medical center without walls.

The mission of the ODP is to increase the participation of under represented and economically disadvantaged groups as well as people of diverse ethnic backgrounds in the continuum of medical school activities. Success in this endeavor depends on a vital interplay of activities involving recruitment, training and education, and provision of outreach support services for multicultural groups.

With respect to the student body, the inclusion in the medical school process of those racial and/or ethnic groups who have unique life experiences is essential to achieving meaningful educational diversity. A medical school admissions program that values diversity recognizes that under represented and economically disadvantaged students reared in this country are most likely to have had different life experiences than similarly situated majority students. What each student takes from those life experiences is unique; indeed, the entire student body will benefit from diversity by learning first-hand that particular and distinct viewpoints do not inhere in certain racial and ethnic cultural groups.

While Washington University School of Medicine celebrates the richness of all ethnic and cultural backgrounds represented in the School of Medicine, it has been and continues to be increasingly difficult to attract groups under represented in medicine and women. Innovative methods will be needed to compete for the limited pool of talented students and develop an environment conducive to their intellectual growth and maturation, while supporting an aggressive recruitment program that assures uniform admissions policies and maintains high academic performance standards.

Overall, continued emphasis should be placed on recruiting MD, PhD and MD/PhD candidates reflecting diversity in race and ethnicity as well as gender. Efforts between the University's Danforth campus and the medical school should be coordinated to facilitate recruitment and training of these students.