Increasing Family Medicine Faculty Diversity Still Lags Population Trends

Abstract

Background: Faculty diversity has important implications for medical student diversity. The purpose of this analysis is to describe trends in racial, ethnic, and gender diversity in family medicine (FM) departments and compare these trends to the diversity of matriculating medical students, the diversity of all medical school faculty, and the population in general.

Methods: We used the Association of American Medical Colleges Faculty Roster to describe trends in proportions of female and minorities under-represented in medicine (URM) in FM department full-time faculty in U.S. MD-granting medical schools.

Results: Among FM faculty, the proportions of female and URM faculty have grown more than 2-fold between 1980 and 2015. Increasing faculty rank was associated with lower diversity across the study period. FM departments had higher female and URM proportions than the average of all other specialties, but URM representation still lagged population trends.

Conclusion: Although FM faculty diversity is growing over time, continued attention to URM representation should remain a priority.

Keywords: Ethnic Groups; Medical Faculty; Medical Schools; Medical Students; Minority Groups.