No Progress Over the Past Decade in Diversifying Surgical Faculty at U.S. Medical Schools

In a new study, senior author Oluwadamilola M. Fayanju, an associate professor of surgery at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and her colleagues found that little progress has been made in diversifying medical school surgical faculty in the past decade. They also found that medical schools with more diverse surgical faculty had greater racial, ethnic, and gender diversity in their medical students.

Researchers used data from 140 U.S. medical schools to assess trends from 2011 to 2020 in racial/ethnic and gender representation among surgical faculty and medical students. They focused on groups known to be underrepresented in medicine, including Black or African American; American Indian or Alaskan Native; Hispanic, Latino, or of Spanish Origin; and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander. They found that diversity was greater among medical students than among faculty. The data showed that faculty from all underrepresented groups remained unchanged at about 11 percent.

The researchers also found that medical schools with more faculty from underrepresented groups had a great number of students from these groups. Therefore, the results suggest that by recruiting and retaining faculty from underrepresented groups, medical schools may be able to improve student diversity and produce a greater number of physicians from underrepresented groups in the future.

Dr. Fayanju received a bachelor’s degree in history and science and a master’s degree in comparative literature from Harvard University. She earned her medical doctorate and a master of population health sciences degree from Washington University in St. Louis.

The full study, “Trends in Racial, Ethnic, and Sex Representation Among Surgical Faculty Members and Medical Students in the US, 2011-2020,” was published on the website of the journal JAMA Surgery. It may be accessed here.

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Get the JBHE Weekly Bulletin

Receive our weekly email newsletter delivered to your inbox

Latest News

California State University Sacramento Launches Black Honors College

Officially launching for the fall 2024 semester, the Black Honors College will support students from all backgrounds who study Black history, life, and culture by providing them with a specialized curriculum and mentoring opportunities.

Higher Education Gifts or Grants of Interest to African Americans

Here is this week’s news of grants or gifts to historically Black colleges and universities or for programs of particular interest to African Americans in higher education.

In Memoriam: Norman B. Anderson, 1955-2024

Dr. Anderson was the assistant vice president for research and academic affairs at Florida State University at the time of his death. He had an extensive career in clinical psychology, which led him to become the first African American chief executive officer of the American Psychological Association.

Georgia State University Launches Program to Support Black Women in Tech

While Black women account for roughly 29 percent of the Georgia State University undergradaute student body, they represent only 10 percent of the university's computer science majors and 18 percent of the computer information systems majors.

Featured Jobs