MONTREAL The increasing diversity of McGill Universitys medical class may have some worried, but it reflects a trend across North America, and a concerted effort on the part of medical school administrators to ensure students of all ethnic, socioeconomic and linguistic backgrounds have the opportunity to become doctors.

One of our biggest roles is determining who will enter our profession and serve our Canadian population, said Genevive Moineau, president and CEO of the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada (AFMC). And our faculties of medicine are very committed to social accountability. Some schools are uniquely focused on marks, but we want people who can serve some underserved populations.

In fact, the AFMCs conference last weekend was focused on admissions best practices and how to foster diversity, particularly in view of the fact Canada will be establishing its own accreditation standards for medical schools. That should be approved this summer and would mean universities would have to uphold the new standards by spring 2016.

Until now, accreditation was set by U.S. standards, but Moineau said the idea of having a uniquely Canadian set of standards has been percolating for a long time.

Canada wants to determine for itself what it deems important, she said in an interview. For example, in the U.S., diversity is often related to ethnicity, but in Canada there are other aspects that are important as well. But fostering diversity is one of the AFMCs priorities, Moineau said.

No one is advocating using quotas, she said, and surveys about applicant demographics are completely anonymous.

But we need to understand who is applying and see where were going wrong from a diversity point of view, she said.

Jesse Kancir, president of the Canadian Federation of Medical Students, said students are on board with increasing diversity, particularly socioeconomic diversity.

As long as were ensuring that by the time people get into the pool theyre competent, then I think the onus is on medical schools to be training physicians to serve the population, he said in an interview. Perhaps you cant put in filters when trying to select candidates, but you have to ensure that pool of candidates is wide enough to begin with.

He said with only about eight per cent of applicants getting into medical school, its not a question of lowering standards to increase diversity.

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Medical schools committed to social accountability