Virtual Brunches to Enhance Recruitment of Residents and Fellows Who Self-Identify as Underrepresented in Medicine

Our institution, along with many others, struggles to recruit residents and fellows who identify as underrepresented in medicine (UIM). There have been various program-level interventions implemented across the nation; however, little is known about graduate medical education (GME)-wide recruiting events for UIM trainees.

We describe the development, implementation, and evaluation of a GME-wide recruitment program, Virtual UIM Recruitment Diversity Brunches (VURDBs), to meet this need.

A virtual, 2-hour event was held 6 times on Sunday afternoons between September 2021 and January 2022. We surveyed participants on a rating of the VURDBs from excellent (4) to fair (1) and their likelihood of recommending the event to their colleagues from extremely (4) to not at all (1). We used institutional data to compare pre- and post-implementation groups using a 2-sample test of proportions.

Across 6 sessions, 280 UIM applicants participated. The response rate of our survey was 48.9% (137 of 280). Fifty-eight percent (79 of 137) rated the event as excellent, and 94.2% (129 of 137) were extremely or very likely to recommend the event. The percentage of new resident and fellow hires who identify as UIM significantly increased from 10.9% (67 of 612) in academic year 2021-2022 to 15.4% (104 of 675) in academic year 2022-2023. The percentage of brunch attendees matriculating into our programs in academic year 2022-2023 was 7.9% (22 of 280).

VURDBs are a feasible intervention associated with increased rates of trainees identifying as UIM matriculating in our GME programs.