January 2006 | Back to Table of Contents

MMA News

Mentoring Future Doctors

The MMA’s Minority and Cross Cultural Affairs Committee launched a program to encourage minority students to consider careers in medicine.

The first session of the Physician Exploring Post was held Dec. 8 at Roosevelt High School in south Minneapolis. The session was the first of five. In the works are plans for a suturing workshop, an arm-casting lab, medical trivia games, and tours of the Minnesota Department of Health and the University of Minnesota Medical School.

The MMA partnered with a Texas-based nonprofit, Learning for Life, that runs Exploring, a program designed to help teenagers learn about different career options.

One of the MMA’s goals is to encourage more minority students to enter medicine. Nationally, minorities are underrepresented in doctors’ offices. About 25 percent of the U.S. population are minorities, but only about 7 percent of doctors are.

Minority physicians are more likely to work in underserved communities. One poll of medical students found that one-third to one-half of minority medical students intended to work in underserved communities, compared with only 20 percent of Caucasian students.

Fatima Jiwa, M.D., a pediatrician at Partners in Pediatrics in Robbinsdale, who participated in the first session, notes that many patients are more comfortable with a doctor who comes from a similar background. Also, having a provider who can speak a patient’s native language can improve the quality of care the patient receives.

The first session at Roosevelt, which included a game of medical jeopardy, attracted 16 students, most of whom were Somali girls.

“I really enjoyed being able to interact with a bunch of teenagers and teach them without them knowing they were being taught,” Jiwa says of the event. The other physicians at the event were Juan Bowen, M.D., and Clifford Phibbs, M.D.

Juice, the New Cookie

The MMA wants juice out of and real fruits and veggies in federal food assistance programs.

It may sound counterintuitive, but “the idea that juice is a healthy thing is a marketing ploy,” says Sarah Jane Schwarzenberg, M.D., a member of the MMA’s Obesity Task Force and director of the Pediatric Weight Management Clinic at the University of Minnesota Children’s Hospital. “It has been glamorized and promoted by industry as a healthy beverage, but it is not much better than pop with some vitamins added into it,” she says.

In December, the MMA Board of Trustees adopted a policy calling for the MMA to ask federal policymakers to make a change in the supplemental nutrition program for women, infants, and children (WIC)—to eliminate fruit juice from the list of WIC-eligible foods and to add fruits and vegetables. The federal program provides low-income women and children assistance with buying food. WIC-eligible foods are those foods that can be purchased with food assistance checks or vouchers.

The board adopted the policy at the request of the MMA’s Obesity Task Force, which has concluded that consumption of fruit juice has contributed to the rapidly increasing rate of obesity in Minnesota’s children.

Nationally, the percentage of children ages 6 to 11 years who are overweight has more than doubled in the past 20 years. Obesity puts children at increased risk for developing high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and type 2 diabetes, as well as bone and joint problems, shortness of breath, sleep apnea, and depression.

A draft of WIC-eligible foods is expected to be available for comment in January 2006.

Currently, any fruit and/or vegetable juice or juice blend (for example, orange, grapefruit, apple, grape, pineapple, tomato, and cranapple) is WIC- eligible. Fruits and most vegetables are not.

Schwarzenberg says fruit drinks are not only high in calories but also are not as filling as whole fruits, which also provide children with important fiber, micronutrients, and antioxidants.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children should eat whole fruits, that juice be limited to 4 to 6 ounces a day for young children and 8 to 12 ounces for children age 7 and older, and no juice in bottles or sippy-cups for infants. Pediatricians advise against juice because research shows that when children consume more than 6 ounces a day, they have a significant chance of becoming overweight, Schwarzenberg says.

The Institute of Medicine released a report in April that recommended WIC should limit juice eligibility to 4 ounces per day and provide cash vouchers for fruits and vegetables.

Schwarzenberg says she’s pleased that the MMA has come forward with an even stronger recommendation than the Institute of Medicine’s by advocating for no fruit juice.

By doing so, the MMA is emphasizing the message that juice should be avoided.

Schwarzenberg advises that children drink milk or water. “If you want to give your children 4 ounces of fruit juice, then do it as a treat instead of a cookie,” she says.