Minorities in medical school and National Medical Fellowships, Inc.: 50 years and counting

A compromise method to facilitate under-represented minority admissions to medical school

Ranked purely on the basis of the available reliable and valid measures, the demographic composition of incoming medical students fails to meet societal concerns regarding under-represented minorities (URM). Admissions offices are squeezed, administratively and legally, between honouring objectively measured individual merit and addressing societal needs. Until more successful recruitment and preparation of URM applicants closes that gap, compromise methods balancing those discordant ideals can be applied. Indeed, as progress over time decreases the relative societal need for affirmative action, compromise methods are mandated by no less a voice than that of the United States Supreme Court. This article proffers one such method, based upon the work of Hofstee, and demonstrates how it can be practically applied to a specific URM challenge. As perspective, past and present philosophical approaches to this discordance are categorized.

Specialty choices, compensation, and career satisfaction of underrepresented minority faculty in academic medicine

PURPOSE

Despite efforts to increase the numbers of underrepresented minorities (URMs), only 3.9% of medical school faculty are URMs. The authors compared the specialty choices, compensation, and career satisfaction of minority faculty with those of their majority counterparts to determine whether there were differences that might affect the recruitment and retention of minority faculty.

METHOD

In 1995, the authors mailed a self-administered survey to a stratified random sample of 3,013 eligible full-time salaried faculty in 24 randomly selected medical schools. Those schools, which had at least 200 faculty, did not include the Puerto Rican or historically black medical schools.

RESULTS

Of the eligible faculty surveyed, 1,807 (60%) responded; 1,463 were majority faculty, 195 were URM faculty, and 149 were other-minority faculty. Similar proportions of the three groups were in the primary care specialties. Only 11% of the URM respondents were in basic science departments. There was no significant difference in adjusted mean compensation between majority, URM, and other-minority faculty. However, URM faculty were significantly less satisfied with their careers (adjusted scores: 60 versus > 65; p = .001) and more often considered leaving academic medicine within five years (58% versus < 45%).

CONCLUSION

Given the demographic changes of the U.S. population, these issues should be addressed by deans and department heads in order to enhance recruitment and facilitate retention of URM faculty in academic medicine.