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Training and retaining of underrepresented minority physician scientists – an African-American perspective: NICHD AAP workshop on research in neonatal and perinatal medicine

Journal of Perinatology volume 26, pages S46–S48 (2006)Cite this article

The goal of neonatal–perinatal training is to expose and prepare trainees for a successful career in academic medicine as defined by publication of peer-reviewed journals, securing of grants, membership in national societies and visiting professorships. These activities denote peer recognition and lead to promotion and tenure. Other important factors in a successful career are effective teaching and mentoring as well as developing models of clinical excellence. Obviously, the ultimate career goal is personal satisfaction. For underrepresented minority physicians (URM), these goals are sometimes more daunting and difficult to achieve. This paper will attempt to define the reasons why this may be the case.

The last US census demonstrates that 32.6% of the population is from a minority group.1 This segment of the population is often overrepresented when it comes to debilitating diseases such as diabetes, cancer2 and conditions relating to prematurity,3 yet only 4.9% of all medical school faculty are underrepresented minorities. Furthermore, in the United States, the pediatric population is becoming increasingly diverse yet the workforce is not.4 Despite the fact that in recent years, a larger proportion of minority students have matriculated from high school, these students only comprise 13% of the BS degrees and 7% of the PhD degrees5 and the percentage of URM accepted into medical school has been declining in the last 6 years6 – demonstrating clearly that the pipeline is leaking.7 Recently, the term underrepresented in medicine was coined to define faculty that are from racial and ethnic groups that are underrepresented in the medical population relative to their numbers in the general population.8 Corroborating this, African-Americans constitute 3% of the medical school faculty and only 1.2% of the professors of the medical school, whereas white subjects represent 81.3% of the medical school faculty and 89.4% of the professors.6 This suggests that the underrepresented minorities are not only less represented in medicine, but they are also less likely to be promoted in academic rank. Using this same criterion of underrepresented in medicine, one would suggest that Asians, who represent 12.6% of the medical population but only 4% of the general population, should not be considered.6 However, upon closer look, in the medical school, Asians are overrepresented at the more junior ranks and underrepresented at the senior ranks, as are the other minority groups.6 Despite this gloomy picture, there is good news in that over the last 7 years, an increasing number of URM have chosen pediatric residency programs and have expressed increased satisfaction with their preparation for fellowship training.9 However, they also indicate that they are burdened with increasing debt. For example, whereas 52% of non-URM report being debt free after medical school, only 25% of URM do.6 No statistics exist to determine the number of URM in neonatal and perinatal medicine, but these numbers are likely to be even smaller than those for medicine or pediatrics as a whole.

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  1. Division of Neonatology, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    P A Dennery

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Dennery, P. Training and retaining of underrepresented minority physician scientists – an African-American perspective: NICHD AAP workshop on research in neonatal and perinatal medicine. J Perinatol 26 (Suppl 2), S46–S48 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.jp.7211525

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