Diversity in emergency medicine--a model program

Emergency medicine's (EM's) development as a specialty has spanned the last 25 years, with the first certifying examination administered by the American Board of Emergency Medicine in 1980. National census data project that the new millennium will bring a U.S. population that will be 40% minority. In the year 2000, the U.S. population had a projected minority population of 28%. The diversity of the patients we treat demonstrates the need for EM programs to diversify their faculty and residency staff. Strategies include expanding recruitment and supporting retention of underrepresented students, faculty, and trainees, addressing barriers that may exist for promotion of underrepresented women and minorities, mentoring underrepresented minority (URM) faculty in research and education, providing opportunities for URMs to advance in the field, and mentoring URMs at the junior high and high school levels in the sciences to expand the applicant pool in the field. The authors describe an academic EM program that is a model program for diversity within our specialty.