November 3, 2023
Makeen Yasar Social Media Takeover
To invigorate Social Mission Alliance’s social media presence with student perspectives on issues related to social mission in health professional education, on the first Friday of each month, one Health Justice initiative member gets the opportunity to posts about themselves, activities they’re involved in, and their interests relative to social mission across all of SMA’s social media platforms (X, Instagram, and LinkedIn).
See below for the social media takeover by Makeen Yasar on November 3, 2023.
#FutureFeatureFriday
Makeen Yasar
Yo, my name is Makeen! I’m one of this year’s Health Justice Fellows and a first year medical student at Charles R. Drew University College of Medicine in Los Angeles (c/o 2027), the only historically Black institution on the West Coast. I’m also Co-President of our school’s Student National Medical Association (SNMA).
I was born in Pasadena, CA and raised in Palmdale, CA. My mom is originally from South-Central Los Angeles, and my goal is to create a private practice health center in the community her and my family are from.
I went to Loyola Marymount University for undergrad and was connected to Health Career Connection which helped connect me to an internship at Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine in 2019. At that internship I got to see the in’s and out’s of how a med school works. HCC was the biggest blessing I could have had to learn directly about diversity, equity, and inclusion in medical education.
The following year I was hired by KP’s med school to work on pathways initiatives for underrepresented students. I had been involved in mentorship and creating youth programs around health careers since college, and this was an opportunity to create relationships with local schools and orgs dedicated to supporting underrepresented students in medicine, including a mentorship program of 20+ students I created while in partnership with STEM Academy of Hollywood.
Growing up the only Black physician I knew was my grandmother’s doctor, Dr. Cottles. I didn’t decide to become a doctor till I was older, but he made it seem normal that it was something that I could become.
For a lot of Black and Brown students, a large number of us don’t have access to direct mentors or family members in medicine. Oftentimes I hear from students that they couldn’t see themselves as doctors, or even if they wanted to pursue it that they didn’t feel they had the social or financial resources to be competitive. Pathways programs help to even the playing field. As someone who’s going to be the first doctor in their family, I’m a proud product of those programs.
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Now I get to be a part of the new MD program at Charles R. Drew University. We’re a historically Black graduate institution and the only one west of the Mississippi. We’re one of 4 HBCU med schools, along with Howard, Morehouse and Meharry.
Look into my first Block!
- HoloLens virtual anatomy to see a 360 of the body’s systems
- Barbeque with students at our school and UCLA!
- Clinical correlates where we were learning about human anatomy through radiology
Back in the early 1900’s there used to be 7 HBCU medical schools, but a majority of them were closed down due to something called the Flexner Report. Only Meharry and Howard were left. The report was meant to make medical education more standardized, but instead of allocating resources to restructure schools without the resources to make the mark, they closed the schools instead.
In a heavily segregated U.S., HBCU’s received the worst of the report.
Thinking about this history, it really makes me think about the affirmative action ruling and it’s original purpose. Things like the Flexner Report, bias in admissions and racist policies kept so many Black and Brown students like myself out of medical school. Affirmative action was meant to be reparative, to help restore some of the harms done against people of color across higher education. This was especially important to medicine and health equity, as BIPOC physicians are more likely to serve in rural and urban underserved areas facing health disparities.
Now that it’s gone, where do we go from here to build new programs, structures, and policies that ensure students of color get a fair chance at an opportunity?
Affirmative action as a diversity policy wasn’t perfect, and it was heavily limited as a policy in certain states. It was actually banned in California since the 1990’s.
But there’s a lot of really good work being done in the spirit of diversifying the field! Check out our last webinar that talks about programs, initiatives, and policies professionals are utilizing and creating to keep diversifying the field.
Food for thought! There’s still a lot of work to do, a lot to consider. But I believe we can even go beyond affirmative action to where my experience isn’t unique, but the norm.
Happy Friday y’all!
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The Social Mission Alliance is a joint activity with the Mullan Institute and George Washington University. Learn more about the Mullan Institute here.
