Students want the school to make an effort to include minority volunteers in the patient cases that students study in their classrooms and clinics. So-called “standardized patient” volunteers have traditionally been white men age 40 to 55. So have many of the community health care providers the school recruits to mentor students.

“Most standardized patients are white,” said Tatiana Amaye-Obu, a member of the Class of 2024. “I had my first nonwhite patient last year in my second semester, but some students have never had a nonwhite standardized patient.”

Jennifer Meka, an associate dean at the Jacobs School’s Medical Education and Educational Research Institute, said the school is creating guidelines “to revise cases to better reflect the diverse population our local students will be working with.”

The school views its Health in the Neighborhood course created in 2018 as a model for future community partnerships, said Jacobs Dean Allison Brashear who came aboard in December from the University of California, Davis. UC Davis’ medical school is considered one of the most diverse in the nation.

Health in the Neighborhood pairs medical students with members of the Hopewell Baptist Church congregation in Buffalo to help students gain a better understanding of the barriers that many in the African American community have experienced when seeking health care.