At 9:30 on a recent Saturday morning, when a lot of teenagers were still home in bed, 10 high school seniors sat in a conference room at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, talking about what it takes to succeed in medical school.“You’re going to need study groups, Jesus, Moses, Muhammad, Allah,” said instructor Damien Myers. “Everything you can get a hold of, you’ll need on your side.”Myers is chief education officer of a program called MERIT, which helps prepare mostly black and Latino students to become doctors, medical examiners and public health leaders. Together, African-Americans, Latinos and Native Americans make up about a quarter of the U.S. population, but just 9 percent of doctors. Meanwhile, the number of black men applying to medical school is lower than it was in the late 1970s. Health experts say the lack of diversity in medicine contributes to disparities in the care patients receive.

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When Myers finished medical school in 2007, he was one of only two black men in his class of 110. He left medicine to give students the kind of support he wishes he’d had.“If you don't have someone in your corner encouraging you, you can become discouraged and find an easier path,” he said. “We're not going to lie and say it's an easy path, but it is attainable. It’s doable.”That’s not a message 18-year-old Christiona Harris said she and her fellow students have heard enough in their lives. She wants to be a pediatric trauma surgeon.“A young black boy – if he's tall, he's a basketball player. If he's stocky, he's ...