We Asked the Experts: Breaking the Cycle of Attrition in Perioperative Academic Medicine

Excerpt

There is increasing awareness that a diverse healthcare workforce is essential for improving the nation’s health outcomes [1‐3]. In response, academic medical centers have focused their efforts on promoting gender equity and inclusion, as well as implementing policies to support the retention and advancement of trainees and faculty who have historically been underrepresented in medicine (UIM) [2‐4]. The value of these efforts is seen in studies that demonstrate that surgical outcomes are improved when the perioperative specialties reflect a diverse workforce [5]. Unfortunately, diversity initiatives at academic medical centers do not automatically translate into clinical leadership and executive management positions, especially in the perioperative specialties (Fig. 1) [1]. According to the AAMC [6], 31% of US medical school graduates and a weighted average of 29% of graduating residents and 31% of assistant professors in the combined fields of anesthesiology, obstetrics/gynecology, general surgery, and surgical subspecialties identify as UIM or Asian. However, the prevalence of UIM or Asian faculty drops by nearly 40% among full professors and almost 50% among department chairs, indicating that faculty of color—particularly female faculty of color—have yet to achieve parity in perioperative academic leadership. Below, we highlight two mechanisms that contribute to the persistence of racial disparities in academic leadership for the perioperative specialties: institutionalized barriers and personally mediated barriers [7].

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