Abstract
Within this article, we explore the dual impact of two pandemics, racism and COVID-19, on the career and psychological well-being of diverse faculty within academic medicine. First, we present a discussion of the history of racism in academic medicine and the intensification of racial disparities due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result of the syndemic of racism and COVID-19, the outlook for the recruitment, retention, and advancement of diverse faculty and leaders within academic medicine is at risk. While mentoring is known to have benefits for career and personal development, we focus on the unique and often unacknowledged role that mentoring can play as a buffer for women and people of color, especially when working in institutions that lack diversity and are now struggling with the syndemic of racism and COVID-19. We also discuss the implications of acknowledging mentoring as a buffer for future leadership development, research, and programs within academic medicine and health professions.
Highlights
As continual efforts are made to expand the diversity of the academic medicine workforce, health centers, accrediting bodies, medical societies, and others have established equity, diversity, inclusion, and anti-racism as priorities
We explore the dual impact of two pandemics, that is, the syndemic of racism and COVID-19, on the need and complexity of developing diverse leaders within academic medicine
We offer mentoring as a solution to the existing challenges of a lack of diversity within academic medicine and the unique challenges for underrepresented racial and ethnic minority (URM) faculty
Summary
Racism is a foundation of discrimination, and manifests through the enablement and propagation of systems that advantage some and disadvantage others [1]. Association (AMA), Abraham Flexner, reviewed all 155 medical schools in the US and Canada and published the findings in 1910 that provided criteria to standardize and improve medical schools [8] These earlier recommendations resulted in the closing of many underresourced institutions. More recent calls for diversity are focused on the multiple benefits derived from having diverse classrooms and working environments [12,13,14,15,16,17] This includes research focused on physician workforce diversity that is associated with increased access to care, in particular, for underserved communities, increased patient adherence to treatment, and patient satisfaction with care [18,19,20,21,22]
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