Increasing Diversity in Radiology and Molecular Imaging: Current Challenges

Abstract

This paper summarizes the 2020 Diversity in Radiology and Molecular Imaging: What We Need to Know Conference, a three-day virtual conference held September 9-11, 2020. The World Molecular Imaging Society (WMIS) and Stanford University jointly organized this event to provide a forum for WMIS members and affiliates worldwide to openly discuss issues pertaining to diversity in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The participants discussed three main conference themes, "racial diversity in STEM," "women in STEM," and "global health," which were discussed through seven plenary lectures, twelve scientific presentations, and nine roundtable discussions, respectively. Breakout sessions were designed to flip the classroom and seek input from attendees on important topics such as increasing the representation of underrepresented minority (URM) members and women in STEM, generating pipeline programs in the fields of molecular imaging, supporting existing URM and women members in their career pursuits, developing mechanisms to effectively address microaggressions, providing leadership opportunities for URM and women STEM members, improving global health research, and developing strategies to advance culturally competent healthcare.

Keywords: Diversity; Molecular imaging; Radiology; STEM.

Fig. 1.

Although women make up nearly 50 % of medical school graduates, as seniority increases, women are less represented with less than 10 % of radiology chairs being women. We need to develop solutions to fix this “leaky pipe” of career progression (Figure from [5]). The study was performed on 2010 data with 541 radiology residents included. Data sources had US population data from the US Census Bureau, practicing physician data from the American Medical Association, medical school graduate data from the American Association of Medical Colleges, and residency data from [–9]. The authors state that “for race and ethnicity measures, unduplicated totals were provided for U.S. census, medical school graduates, and residents and fellows for race and ethnicity separately. For other data sources, Hispanic individuals were included in the “other” racial category because no breakdown by race was provided.” [5]

Fig. 2.

The “elephant in the room”: while women make up ~50 % of medical school applicants and graduates, they are increasingly underrepresented in senior and leadership positions. Reprinted from [37] with permission from the Association of American Medical Colleges.

Fig. 3.

Addressing microaggressions and interrupting bias, used with permission from [55].

Fig. 4.

Alicanto is a platform and online community that could enable online skills transfer for both clinical care and research in developing countries.