Postbaccalaureate premedical programs to promote physician-workforce diversity

There is a critical need for enhanced health-professions workforce diversity to drive excellence and to improve access to quality care for vulnerable and underserved populations. In the current higher education environment, post-baccalaureate premedical programs with a special focus on diversity, sustained through consistent institutional funding, may be an effective institutional strategy to promote greater health professions workforce diversity, particularly physician-workforce diversity. In 2014, 71 of the 200 programs (36%) in a national post-baccalaureate premedical programs data base identified themselves as having a special focus on groups underrepresented in medicine and/or on economically or educationally disadvantaged students. Three post-baccalaureate premedical programs with this focus are described in detail and current and future challenges and opportunities for post-baccalaureate premedical programs are discussed.