White Coats, Black Specialists? Racial Divides in the Medical Profession

Abstract

This study assesses whether racialized patterns of medical specialization persist among a recent cohort of U.S. medical students. Data from the Association of American Medical College's 2004 Graduation Questionnaire (GQ), an annual survey of all graduating U.S. medical students, are employed to explore how factors internal and external to medical education influence specialization patterns among black and white medical school graduates. The data suggest that a degree of racial division in medical specialization endures, but that division does not neatly map onto specialty prestige and is deeply gendered. Black graduates are more likely to enter high-prestige surgical residency programs than their white colleagues, but this finding holds only for male medical school graduates. That the surgery effect emerges only with the inclusion of social factors inside and outside medicine suggests these have distinct impact across race. We conclude by suggesting directions for future studies of stratification in medicine.