Are We Really Retaining URiM Faculty in Academic Medicine?

Previous studies have identified the need to improve recruitment and retention of faculty who are underrepresented in medicine (URiM); however, it is unclear to what extent medical schools have been able to sustain growth and retain URiM faculty representation.

Numbers of URiM faculty at each AAMC medical school from 2012 to 2021 were obtained from the Association of American Medical Colleges Faculty Administrative Management Online User System database. Year-over-year percent change was calculated for each school and year of the study period for all URiM faculty, junior URiM faculty, and senior URiM faculty. Pearson's correlation was used to compare percent change in 1 year to the previous and subsequent years for all three groups. Pearson's correlation coefficients were also used to compare percent change between junior and senior URiM faculty for the same, previous, and subsequent years.

The percentage change for URiM faculty at all ranks between adjacent years occurring from 2012 to 2021 was weakly and negatively associated (r = - 0.06, p value = 0.03). There was significant positive correlation between the percent change in junior URiM faculty and senior URiM faculty in the same year (r = 0.11) and previous year (r = 0.09).

URiM faculty growth in 1 year is not sustained in the next year. More research is needed to better understand efforts at retention of URiM faculty in academic medicine.