The only tribal medical school in the U.S. graduates its first Native American doctors

From STAT:

There are so few Indigenous physicians in the United States — just 0.3% of doctors — that their numbers barely show up in charts and graphs depicting the diversity of the medical workforce. But as of Thursday, there will be at least nine more.

Thursday is graduation day for the first class of the nation’s only tribally affiliated medical school, the Oklahoma State University College of Osteopathic Medicine at the Cherokee Nation. Started in 2020, it’s an effort to boost the numbers of both Indigenous physicians and doctors willing to treat patients in rural areas experiencing severe physician shortages.