Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Content on Internal Medicine Fellowship Programs' Webpages

One way in which graduate medical programs can attract a diverse applicant pool is through the utilization of their program's website to display their diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives to prospective trainees. Given that internal medicine subspecialists makeup a significant percentage of our country's practicing physicians, a diverse physician workforce within these fields of medicine is imperative.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the prevalence and type of DEI content on prominent internal medicine subspecialty fellowship webpages.

One thousand five hundred twenty-three fellowship programs' websites were analyzed utilizing a standardized scoring system for five separate DEI criteria across nine internal medicine subspecialities during October 2023. Programs were evaluated for the presence of the following criteria: (1) fellowship-associated DEI webpage, (2) DEI commitment statement, (3) DEI initiatives (summer research opportunities for URiM individuals, DEI council, etc.), (4) link to the institution's DEI homepage, and (5) information about bias training.

Of the 1523 program websites analyzed, 57.3% had no DEI content on their webpages. Of those that did, a link to the institution's DEI homepage was the most prevalent factor (35.3). On average, endocrinology fellowship program websites had the most DEI content, whereas gastroenterology fellowship program websites had the least.

The results of this study demonstrate an overwhelming lack of DEI content across all internal medicine subspecialty training programs' webpages. These findings are relevant to fellowship program leadership as they represent an actionable area of improvement within the realm of DEI to improve representation among different groups at training programs.