Medical Education as Mission: Why One Medical School Chose to Accept DREAMers

Mark G. Kuczewski and Linda Brubaker, “Med­ical Edu­ca­tion as Mis­sion: Why One Med­ical School Chose to Accept DREAM­ers,” The Hast­ings Cen­ter Report 43, no. 6 (2013): 21–24. DOI: 10.1002/hast.230

Abstract: In Octo­ber 2012, the Loy­ola Uni­ver­sity Chicago Stritch School of Med­i­cine amended its eli­gi­bil­ity require­ments for admis­sion. In addi­tion to U.S. cit­i­zens and per­ma­nent res­i­dents, per­sons who qual­ify for the Deferred Action for Child­hood Arrivals pro­gram of the United States Cit­i­zen­ship and Immi­gra­tion Ser­vice are now eli­gi­ble for admis­sion. Sim­ply put, we extended the edu­ca­tional oppor­tu­nity of med­ical school to peo­ple who are in a par­tic­u­lar cat­e­gory of undoc­u­mented immi­grants. We became the first med­ical school in the United States to have an inten­tional, trans­par­ent pol­icy of eli­gi­bil­ity for per­sons eli­gi­ble for the DACA pro­gram. This expanded admis­sions pol­icy has gained some atten­tion in the pop­u­lar press and brought us many expres­sions of sup­port. It has also dis­mayed a few mem­bers of our school’s cir­cle of fac­ulty and alumni.

We wish to walk you through the his­tory of our policy’s devel­op­ment. We believe that view­ing it as it devel­oped will make clear three per­ti­nent ideas: this pol­icy flows directly from the mis­sion of med­ical schools, it suits a pos­i­tive notion of social jus­tice and is also com­pelled by a duty not to dis­crim­i­nate on arbi­trary grounds, and edu­ca­tors who stew­ard edu­ca­tional insti­tu­tions must have the moral courage to place con­sid­er­a­tions of insti­tu­tional mis­sion and social jus­tice above the polit­i­cal views and neg­a­tive responses of some alumni and donors.

Read the full essay in the November-December 2013 issue of the Hast­ings Cen­ter Report. This arti­cle is avail­able for free on Wiley Online Library.