 Alright so we are in a pretty interesting time in our world where we're talking a lot more about diversity and inclusion and it's really important in healthcare as well and so we're going to be talking in this video about maybe like just opening the discussion on how can we increase diversity in healthcare because it's necessary. So let's get into this video right now. I had this question posed by one of my subscribers and I think it's a really interesting question and really something that we should be thinking about as we continue to move forward in our world and in our future because our world is increasingly becoming more and more diverse. Like President Biden said there are commercials now with you know interracial, biracial children and interracial couples and I mean that's just because that is the demographic that we're kind of moving towards and so with that being said what are we doing as a nation and as a healthcare system to be more inclusive because those are the populations that we're going to be serving and so sometimes it's needed and it's necessary to see somebody that looks like you. I know that it was important for me when I was applying to PA school to see people that looked like me and I didn't really see that many and so here's this question this question was posed by Ariba Leonard and she said how can the black community be represented more in the PA field? Is lack of knowledge of the profession for us? I mean I'm a part of the PA person of color Facebook group and there is over a thousand members not understanding the 3.9 percent and so Ariba I mean again I think your question is great and it's pretty interesting and I think it goes beyond just the black community I think that it is just underrepresented minorities in general like how can we increase the diversity but for sure I'm with you that you know the 3.9 percent or so that there are of PA students and then practicing PAs that are currently in the field is pretty dismal especially when you're like pumping out thousands of PAs a year so it is something that we should absolutely think about and I've had several of these discussions with like my friends that are in the field and that aren't in the field that are in other healthcare fields and this is a question that we all talk about because it's not just in the PA field so I just wanted to kind of make note of some of these other professions for you so I did of just like a really quick google search just to kind of see what the percentage of black physicians were what the percentage of black NPs were and what the percentage of black pharmacists were and we were kind of all within the same realm so let me just kind of go to AAMC's site right now and they talked about the percentage of all active physicians by race and ethnicity now this was from 2018 however not much has changed and you can find like more recent updated percentages as well okay so it says among active physicians 56.2 percent identify as white 17.1 percent identify as Asian 5.8 percent identify as Hispanic and 5 percent identify as black or african-american and there's 13.7 percent that they just don't know now 5 percent is not that far off from the 3.9 percent that you're quoting and it's honestly like pretty pretty sad right but that is just the course of what healthcare is let me like just show you this again let's look at pharmacy times so this is for black pharmacists it says according to the results of this survey the percentage of non-white licensed pharmacists increased by 46 percent like kudos to you guys from 14.9 percent in 2014 to 21.8 percent in 2019 um that's like a really nice jump in the span of that five years it says specifically the percentage of black pharmacists more than doubled from 2.3 percent to 4.9 percent so there is a push there's more and more pharmacists that are like coming out that are african-americans which is really cool um and let me just touch on the nurse practitioners for you so it says the average employee age for nurse practitioners 43 years the nurse practitioner workforce reached a whopping 183,432 in 2020 among those workers were discovered that 82.9 percent of them were women while 13.8 percent are men which is also kind of like similar in terms of the pa profession where majority like females but you know the men are on a rise um and then this is the most common race slash ethnicity among nurse practitioners is white which makes up 81.4 percent of all nurse practitioners comparatively there are 6.7 percent of asian ethnicity and 5.2 percent of black or african american ethnicity so everybody if you look at seeing at these statistics it's pretty much across the board that we are in the minority now of course there are lots of things that we can look to is it demographic is it you know we're only able to kind of emulate what we see so we're not seeing many um you know people in the healthcare field that look like us so that's not really what our young people are aspiring to be who knows but i think that education is absolutely where it starts i feel like getting into um these various different schools and neighborhoods and meeting them where they're at is really really important for the the progression of minorities and specifically black and african american individuals in the healthcare field now what i mean by meeting them where they're at is like you know you don't just come in for the day and just like oh hey i'm a physician assistant this is what i do like you actually have to build these bonds with people you know be a big brother big sister type of thing um you know join that be a volunteer uh if you are a pa and you have kids like volunteer at their school for like pta and go in be like a homeroom parent type of thing you can always find a way to make sure that the kids are learning from a small age what you do and what your job is about like i still am talking to my kids on a consistent basis on the fact of like what if pa does and what i do as a pa and the various different fields i can go into because i want to open their minds up i'm talking to my daughter also about what it's like to be a vet because she's really interested in um night on earth and um you know secrets of the zoo so i want to make sure that she is aware that you can do this these are the steps that you have to take but the education i believe is very key in making that happen so that's why channels like mine where you know you have like an african-american female me you know talking about being a pa that many people have subscribed to so we're getting up more and more um just information out there and youtube is pushing the channel a little bit more that helps that helps with the education and it helps with the understanding that hey you know i see that adana did this and yeah you know her road might not have been easy but she made it so i can absolutely make it as well so ariba first and foremost i think the main thing to do is definitely start with education and then i feel that there are all these various different systemic things in the background that kind of hinder african-americans and individuals of minority descent to succeed in the healthcare field it's not really built for us to succeed i would say it costs a lot of money to get into right to apply to these schools and go to interviews and you know do all of that stuff um you know sometimes you're not in the best socioeconomic status or the area of school that you're going to doesn't have the best education so you have to work twice as hard to ensure that you're aware of your options and you don't have like counselors that are pushing for you um as you know some of our caucasian counterparts and so all of these things play a role but i think if we can start with the education not only for our students but also just for the world then um you know the future is bright so let's do that right let's get the word out subscribe you know share these videos um join the various different clubs go talk to you know the the elementary and middle school kids in your neighborhood about the profession do zoom sessions and see how far we can take this thing thank you so much for that question i really appreciate it it's something that is very heavy on my heart and the heart of many of my counterparts in this field and in other fields so really appreciate that question please leave me some comments in the comment section below about ideas that you may have that can help in you know just getting more awareness and increasing that number from the dismal three percent um you know almost four percent that we have uh to greater percentages because diversity in healthcare is absolutely needed go ahead and subscribe to my channel like this video and follow me on instagram and on the pa and on instagram at get that c university please also check out get that c university dot com because as always we have a lot to offer thank you guys so much for watching i will talk to you guys next time bye