Dem dere's da' facts!!!

As I regularly contemplate where my academic and professional goals and dreams can be best supported, I'm reminded of a few of the facts from the image from this post. Most notably the fact that as a Black woman, I have a significantly better shot at achieving both my MD/PhD goals at an HBCU than ANYWHERE else. Hmmm.

One of my current mentors is a brilliant young Black woman with a PhD in Genetics whom I met a few years back while I was working for free at G'town (while waiting on funding "roll eyes"). She was a Howard University graduate and was in her last year of her first post doc (damn shame I gotta specify which Post Doc). She's also been helping me with my research proposals and when we spoke a few days ago, she suggested I at the very least consider applying to PhD programs at HBCUs as well. My first thought was of the encounter I had with a med school rep from an HBCU (which shall remain nameless, LOL) back in 1999 who suggested that at 35, I was too old to pursue med school and certainly too old for an MD/PhD program. So after that one disconcerting experience, I rather ignorantly wrote off HBCUs for my education......................until a few days ago when I talked to my mentor with the Howard PhD.

When I think about the few Black PhDs I know are still in academia, almost ALL of them are at HBCUs. Of course, there's the stigma that HBCUs can't pull RO1 type funding because the "quality research" just isn't there. Well, after having spent 30 years back and forth in academia at majority institutions, I can say that HBCUs have hardly cornered the market on BS in academia. My own experience with having my ideas shot down yet become someone else’s dissertation project, numerous project contributions that barely resulted in a mention in a paper instead of co authorship like the other folks in my group, not to mention the people too many to count that get their names on papers "just 'cause", I can say without equivocation that what's going on at non HBCU's ain't all that pretty either, hence the almost nonexistence of Black Americans on faculty at these schools.

I always say that if I had gone to an HBCU for undergrad I would very likely be a Physician/Scientist by now, but I hate to dwell on that idea too much because I think it's an affront to the many experiences God blessed me with that became my life's story. But the fact is that the stats on where Black folks get PhDs and MD's don't lie, so it's certainly something I need to seriously consider at this point in my life and career.