Year: 2024
Type: conference-paper
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Context: Increasing diversity of the physician workforce is critical for gaining access to a variety of perspectives, improving patient access, enhancing patient and community outcomes, among others. To know whether diversity is indeed increasing, certain data are needed for tracking purposes. The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) received a 3-year award from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to support the Physician Health First: Building Resiliency Intersectionally During Graduate Education (BRIDGE) program. As part of the BRIDGE program, AAFP collected demographic information each year of the grant from medical students and residents. Objective: Capture data that indicates whether the diversity of learners, including both medical students and family medicine residents, is increasing. Study Design and Analysis: Distributed demographic survey to all participants of the BRIDGE program. Participants received a generic Qualtrics link that was sent to a variety of programs (e.g., Project ECHO, FMIG, and online burnout curriculum). Descriptive statistics and non-parametric statistics were used for analysis. Setting: Demographic survey sent to BRIDGE participants nationwide. Population studied: Incoming medical students, current medical students, and current residents. Instrument: Demographic survey (e.g., race, ethnicity, sex, gender identity, location of medical school/residency, age, etc.) was distributed participants in the BRIDGE program to complete the 14-question questionnaire. Outcome Measures: Survey measures included age, sex, race, and ethnicity. Other measures were number of total trainees, underrepresented in medicine (URM) trainees, disadvantaged trainees, and rural trainees. Results: Over 4,000 medical students and residents across the United States participated in BRIDGE program. Even though the greatest representation of respondents were 30-34 years old, female, White, and not Hispanic/Latinx, a sizable percentage of respondents were 25-29 and 35-39 years old and Asian. Overall, the total number of trainees, URM trainees, disadvantaged trainees, and rural trainees increased year-over-year. Conclusions: Documenting key demographic characteristics is necessary to improve the diversity of the family physician workforce. Even though gains have been made in increasing diversity in family medicine, outreach and incentives could help to ensure continual maintenance and enhancement of the physician workforce.
Language: English
Subfield: Gender Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W4404808974