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Medical students in classroom The White Coat Ceremony Dr. Carson Schneck with Anatomy students

RECRUITMENT, ADMISSIONS AND RETENTION (RAR) PROGRAM

 

Raul A. DeLa Cadena, MDThe Recruitment, Admissions and Retention Program (RAR) at Temple University School of Medicine (TUSM) provides support and opportunities for the medical education of educational and/or financially disadvantaged students. The primary purpose of the program is to help TUSM identify, enroll and graduate physicians from disadvantaged backgrounds and retain them in the profession of medicine. These backgrounds include but are not limited to the traditionally medically underrepresented groups of African Americans, mainland Puerto Ricans, Mexican-Americans and Native Americans. The RAR Program has a legacy of over 30 years of ongoing support services to hundreds of minority applicants and medical students of these and other groups that are underrepresented in the profession of medicine (URM).

 

Temple is concerned with more than the façade of equal opportunity. It is devoted to its substance – the effort to help disadvantaged students overcome the academic and economic obstacles that are the reasons for their underrepresentation among our nation's physicians.

 

Since 1971, nearly 700 underrepresented African American and Latino physicians alone completed their medical training at TUSM. Of the 126 medical schools in the United States, TUSM has for many years has been among the top 10 medical schools in enrolling and graduating very large numbers of minority physicians. Over 120 minority medical students attend TUSM each year, representing 17% of its total student enrollment. TUSM is committed to this leadership role in securing diversity in our student body, as well as maintaining excellence in our academic programs.

 

The RAR Program has a staff of full-time counselors responsible for:

  • Increasing the number of RAR Program applicants to TUSM;
  • Maintaining a high level of RAR Program enrollment;
  • Helping to promote students’ academic successes and ensuring retention and on-time graduation.