{"id":92041,"date":"2024-10-25T03:00:32","date_gmt":"2024-10-25T07:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=92041"},"modified":"2024-10-24T16:02:51","modified_gmt":"2024-10-24T20:02:51","slug":"diversity-at-all-costs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2024\/10\/25\/diversity-at-all-costs\/","title":{"rendered":"Diversity at all costs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the <em>National Post<\/em>, <a href=\"https:\/\/nationalpost.com\/opinion\/harry-rakowski-increasing-diversity-in-medicine-is-important-tmu-is-doing-it-the-wrong-way\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Harry Rakowski<\/a> explains why Toronto Generic University &mdash; sorry, I mean &#8220;Toronto Metropolitan University&#8221; &mdash; is reserving 75% of available enrolment in their new medical school for more diverse candidates, even if they wouldn&#8217;t normally qualify by their grades:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/TMU-logo.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right; padding: 0px 0px 10px 25px\" src=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/TMU-logo-480x262.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"262\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-92042\" srcset=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/TMU-logo-480x262.png 480w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/TMU-logo-150x82.png 150w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/TMU-logo.png 512w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>We have a critical shortage of doctors and nurses in Canada. Almost a quarter of our population <a href=\"https:\/\/data.ourcare.ca\/all-questions\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">can&#8217;t find a family doctor<\/a>. Wait times for seeing a specialist, getting medical imaging and surgical dates continue to climb, with only Band-Aid solutions being proposed by the federal and provincial governments. We desperately need to expand medical schools and the licensing of highly qualified foreign medical graduates.<\/p>\n<p>So it was welcome news to hear that 94 undergraduate medical students and 105 postgraduate students (residents) will be entering the newly established <a href=\"https:\/\/www.torontomu.ca\/school-of-medicine\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Toronto Metropolitan University School of Medicine<\/a> when it opens in September 2025. The city of Brampton, Ont. donated a former civic centre along with $20 million in funding for renovations in order to make the school happen.<\/p>\n<p>However, it was highly disturbing to learn that admissions to the new facility will be driven by a culture-war philosophy that will dilute the quality of medical practice.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s no doubt that diversity in medicine helps to optimize care and provide better outcomes for the differing needs of Canada&#8217;s highly diverse population, which includes many individuals disadvantaged by their geography as well as racial and economic inequality. But TMU is going about it the wrong way. Its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.torontomu.ca\/school-of-medicine\/programs\/md\/application-requirements\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">admissions policy<\/a> will focus on DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) rather than quality.<\/p>\n<p>TMU&#8217;s plan is to reserve <a href=\"https:\/\/www.torontomu.ca\/school-of-medicine\/programs\/md\/selection-process\/#!accordion-1725045634886-selection-ranking\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">75 per cent of its enrolment slots<\/a> for &#8220;equity-deserving&#8221; students \u2014 Black and Indigenous applicants and others who meet &#8220;equity-deserving&#8221; criteria including students who identify as members of the 2SLGBTQ+ community, those who are &#8220;racialized&#8221; and individuals &#8220;with lived experiences of poverty or low socio-economic status.&#8221; It will accept a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.torontomu.ca\/school-of-medicine\/programs\/md\/application-requirements\/#!accordion-1725387950818-gpa-requirement\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">minimum grade point average<\/a> (GPA) of 3.3 (B+) \u2014 or even less for select Black and Indigenous applicants \u2014 and then use GPA only as an application criterion, not as a selection criterion. By comparison, the University of Toronto&#8217;s Temerty Faculty of Medicine requires a minimum GPA average of 3.6 for undergraduate applicants (although average acceptance is now 3.95).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the National Post, Harry Rakowski explains why Toronto Generic University &mdash; sorry, I mean &#8220;Toronto Metropolitan University&#8221; &mdash; is reserving 75% of available enrolment in their new medical school for more diverse candidates, even if they wouldn&#8217;t normally qualify by their grades: We have a critical shortage of doctors and nurses in Canada. Almost [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,79,66,53],"tags":[1020,99,303,207,764],"class_list":["post-92041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cancon","category-education","category-health-science","category-politics","tag-progressives","tag-racism","tag-sexism","tag-toronto","tag-university"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-nWx","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92041"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92043,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92041\/revisions\/92043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}