Pulse THE MEDICAL STUDENT SUPPLEMENT OF JAMA

CHAIRPERSON'S COLUMN  The unequal distribution of physicians in the United States presents one of many barriers to health care faced by minority and other disadvantaged groups. While an oversupply of physicians exists in some parts of the country, inner-city minority communities and rural America have far too few. Increasing the number of minority physicians is one way to meet the needs of underserved minority communities.Results of a study of medical school graduates in 1975 (N Engl J Med. 1985;313:1519-1525) indicated that minority physicians chose primary care specialties more frequently than nonminority physicians, that significantly more minority physicians practiced in federally designated health-manpower shortage areas and had more Medicaid recipients in their patient populations, and that physicians from a given racial or ethnic group served disproportionately more patients of their own group. More recent data published by the Association of American Medical Colleges support these practice characteristics.To address this