The Wayne State University School of Medicine Post Baccalaureate Program and Black Medical Association Alumni Steering Committee will celebrate the 50th anniversary of both programs May 19 at the Detroit Yacht Club on Belle Isle.

Speakers at the event, which begins at 8 a.m. and includes a prayer breakfast, include WSU President M. Roy Wilson, School of Medicine Dean Jack D. Sobel, M.D., and representatives and graduates of the programs.

The event will conclude with a cookout at the Detroit Yacht Club on Belle Isle from 1 to 5 p.m.

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To ensure that qualified minorities continued to have the opportunity to enter medical school, in 1969 the WSU School of Medicine established the Post Baccalaureate Program, the first program of its kind in the nation. Initially launched to address the dearth of black students entering medical schools, the free program immersed students whose applications to medical school had been rejected into a year-long education in biochemistry, embryology, gross anatomy, histology and physiology to improve their odds of future acceptance.

Five African-American students were admitted into the initial program, which was so successful that in 1972 it expanded to accept 10 students. The first Post Baccalaureate Program student graduated from the Wayne State University School of Medicine in 1974. The program expanded its efforts to increase underrepresented minorities (Hispanics and Native Americans) in medicine. Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1978 Bakke decision, the program no longer could target only minorities in medicine. The program cast a wider net yet again, accepting socio-economically disadvantaged students regardless of race or ethnicity.

Today the program accepts a maximum of 16 students each year. In the last 30 years, the School of Medicine has invested $35 million in the program, which has graduated 401 participants who have gone on to become physicians.