BACKGROUND:
Medical racism is a significant contributor to Indigenous peoples’ poor health outcomes. Canadian medical schools instituted programs to increase Indigenous representation in medical school. However, there is little data on whether such efforts have been effective in increasing Indigenous medical school admissions.

METHODS:
This study is a retrospective data analysis of admission data from all English speaking medical school programs in Canada (2005 to 2024) from direct request or published reports. We calculated whether the proportion of admitted Indigenous medical students met or exceeded provincial and national (5%) averages of the Indigenous population of Canada for each school. Admission trends over time were determined using Poisson regression.

RESULTS:
Medical school admissions data were available from 12/14 medical schools. The proportion of Indigenous students admitted relative to the medical school class ranged from 0% to 17% with a median of 4.2% (mean 5.8% (SD 4.07)) during the period evaluated. Overall the number of Indigenous student applications and admissions to medical school increased over time. Four schools met the provincial averages and five met national averages based on the most recent year’s data. The Northern Ontario School of Medicine, University of Calgary and the University of Saskatchewan had the highest national and provincial averages. Interpretation: Although the number of Indigenous student applications is increasing, indicating Indigenous-specific programs have helped meet the goal of enrolling a representative proportion of Indigenous students into medical schools in Canada, less than half of schools surveyed are currently achieving Indigenous admissions parity with provincial or national Indigenous population averages.