|
 Diversifying the physician workforce may be key to addressing health
disparities and inequities, Dr. Curtiland Deville of Johns Hopkins
University in Baltimore, Maryland, who worked on the study, said in
an email.
"Minority physicians continue to provide the majority of care for
underserved and non-English speaking populations,” Dr. Deville
added.
Yet "in no specialties . . . were the percentages of black or
Hispanic trainees comparable with the representation of these groups
in the US population," he and his colleagues wrote in JAMA Internal
Medicine.
Medical schools have been trying to increase the diversity of their
students, "with perhaps the assumption that this increased diversity
will translate downstream to all specialties," Dr. Deville told
Reuters Health.
But, he added, his team's new study shows that in some specialties,
such as radiology, orthopedics, and otolaryngology, there's still
"disproportionate underrepresentation of women and minorities.”
Using publicly reported data, the researchers determined that of the
16,835 medical school graduates in 2012, 48 percent were women and
15 percent were minority groups (including 7 percent Hispanic and 7
percent black).
Also in 2012, there were 115,111 trainees in "postgraduate" medical
education - for example, in internships and residencies - of whom 46
percent were women and 14 percent were minorities (8 percent
Hispanic and 6 percent black).
Of the 688,468 practicing physicians in 2012, 30 percent were women
and 9 percent were members of underrepresented minorities, including
5 percent who were Hispanic and 4 percent who were black.
In 2012, women accounted for 82 percent of trainees in obstetrics
and gynecology and for 75 percent of pediatrics trainees. Women also
accounted for more than half of all trainees in dermatology, family
medicine, pathology, and psychiatry - but for only 14 percent of
trainees in orthopedics.
Among black trainees, family medicine and obstetrics and gynecology
were top picks, while otolaryngology (ear, nose and throat) was
least favorite. Among Hispanic trainees, top picks were psychiatry,
family medicine, obstetrics and gynecology and pediatrics, while
ophthalmology was least favorite.
Representation was increased in certain specialties for females,
Blacks, and Hispanics but remained largely unchanged in others, Dr.
Deville told Reuters Health.
[to top of second column] |
What's needed to increase diversity in medical specialties?
“First is the need to increase the available pipeline of diverse
medical students,” Dr. Deville said. “This is especially the case
for Blacks, Hispanics, and other underrepresented groups. In
parallel, is the need to ensure that female, black, and Hispanic
medical students are exposed, prepared, and engaged to join all
medical specialties."
In an interview with Reuters Health, Marc Nivet, chief diversity
officer at the Association of American Medical Colleges, said this
is “an important paper primarily because, in my mind, it calls to
question if we need to be doing more research to figure out why
women remain predominantly in three specialties, family medicine,
pediatrics and OBGYN. Is that based on choice or are they in some
way being relegated to those particular fields, or not being given
advice to go into orthopedics or surgery specialties. Is there
gender bias at play?”
He added, “I do think there is a role for hospitals and medical
schools to make sure that their environments are as inclusive as
possible. A minority or a woman shouldn't look at a particular field
like orthopedics and say, 'Well, that's not for me.' There should be
training that's happening for the graduate medical education leaders
(and) for the faculty members of institutions to make sure that they
are exposing all students to different opportunities so they can
make the right choice for themselves.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1hWztB8 http://bit.ly/1JrNtJ2 JAMA Internal
Medicine, online August 24, 2015.
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
