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Health & Science

Even as the U.S. grows more diverse, the medical profession is slow to follow

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September 23, 2018 at 10:00 a.m. EDT
In 2012, blacks and Hispanics made up more than 30 percent of the U.S. population, but only 14 percent of medical school graduates and less than 10 percent of practicing physicians. (iStock)

I’ve never cared for a Hmong child, but I often think about what it would be like.

The summer before we started medical school, I and other students were advised to read Anne Fadiman’s “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down.”

The book chronicles the illness of Lia Lee, a Hmong girl with severe epilepsy, and her family’s saga navigating the American medical system. The Hmong come from Southeast Asia.