Depression and Perceived Social Support in Asian American Medical Students

Experiences with Racism Among Asian American Medical Students

“…Participants reported that these racialized experiences affected their mental health and made them feel invisible within school support structures, consistent with experiences described by other minoritized trainees in medicine and Asian American HCWs . These findings expand on a previous study that found that Asian American medical students felt excluded in conversations on diversity and inclusion and supports previous work that found institutional responses to microaggressions to be inadequate . Our findings suggest that further attention should be given to counter harmful stereotypes like the model minority stereotype and the perpetual foreigner stereotype.…”

“… 5 , 6 , 8 , 10 , 44 , 45 These findings expand on a previous study that found that Asian American medical students felt excluded in conversations on diversity and inclusion 10 and supports previous work that found institutional responses to microaggressions to be inadequate. 46 Our findings suggest that further attention should be given to counter harmful stereotypes like the model minority stereotype and the perpetual foreigner stereotype. Our stakeholder-derived strategies from the final theme may offer guidance for this inclusion.…”

“…The testimony from these interviews suggests that the monolithic characterization of Asian American medical students further disenfranchises underrepresented Asian populations and is consistent with prior research demonstrating that grouping Asian Americans together make certain subpopulations invisible, which in turn translates to masking health disparities and mental health issues. 4 , 10 , 45 , 47 , 48 , 49 The Association of American Medical Colleges has defined underrepresentation in medicine since 2003 as “racial and ethnic populations that are underrepresented in the medical profession relative to their numbers in the general population.” 50 Disaggregation of medical school applicants based on this definition has shown that some subgroups, such as Bangladeshi, Laotian, Indonesian, and Cambodian populations, are underrepresented. 51 No disaggregated data on matriculated Asian American medical students or other Asian American HCWs has been published thus far.…”

Intersection of anxiety and negative coping among Asian American medical students

“…Individuals who identify as Asian American comprise 21% of matriculating medical students in the United States, but there is limited research focusing on the mental health of these students throughout their medical school experience (Dyrbye et al, 2007;Association of American Medical Colleges, 2021). While there are several studies that have looked at stress, depression, and burnout among minority medical students in general (Pyskoty et al, 1990;Camp et al, 1994;Henning et al, 1998;Tjia et al, 2005;Dyrbye et al, 2006aDyrbye et al, , 2007Yang et al, 2021), there are fewer studies also examining anxiety among this population and, in particular, a paucity of data on medical students who identify as Asian American (Quek et al, 2019). Existing literature examining the prevalence of anxiety and depression among medical students found that medical students had higher rates of anxiety and depression relative to the general population (Dyrbye et al, 2006b).…”