Q&A: Providing structural support to underrepresented minorities in academia
A new paper in the New England Journal of Medicine outlines some of the systemic hurdles that underrepresented minorities (URM) in academic medicine face, and offers suggestions for institutions to address these challenges. I spoke with Kemi Doll, a gynecologic oncologist at the University of Washington and one of the co-authors of the paper to learn more.
What are some of the struggles that underrepresented minorities in academic medicine face?
There’s a real issue with isolation and hypervisibility. It’s difficult to be the only person in the group because of a lack of shared perspective and the extra burden it places on you to adapt. But all your moves are highly visible. While institutions are promoting you and putting you on brochures, you’re dealing with your skills being under a microscopic lens. You don't want to mess up because you're a stand-in for all people who look like you.
What would structural support from universities look like?
Leaders recruiting URMs [should] educate themselves about what it means to have these people come in and be the only ones in the department. Second thing is support outside the department — such as specific coaching and training to navigate things experienced by minorities. A lot of the training such as on implicit bias and microaggressions is actually aimed at the majority, versus equipping URM faculty on navigating around them. Finally, we need support from departments in the form of more in-person meetings or additional time to apply for different funding mechanisms specifically aimed at addressing racial bias in the current peer review system [such as in the NIH grant system]. URM are more likely to seek other funding opportunities and departments have to show they're supportive of this.
How does this fit in with the recent uprisings in support of the Black Lives Matter movement?
This paper was written and accepted before Covid-19 and the recent uprisings. If I wrote this today, I would underscore that asking URM faculty to do diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) work is another burden. In medicine, when we have someone who can do rare and highly specialized work, that work is highly prized and that person is usually paid more — except DEI work. We need to treat DEI work the way we treat other special skills in medicine.
What are some of the struggles that underrepresented minorities in academic medicine face?
There’s a real issue with isolation and hypervisibility. It’s difficult to be the only person in the group because of a lack of shared perspective and the extra burden it places on you to adapt. But all your moves are highly visible. While institutions are promoting you and putting you on brochures, you’re dealing with your skills being under a microscopic lens. You don't want to mess up because you're a stand-in for all people who look like you.
What would structural support from universities look like?
Leaders recruiting URMs [should] educate themselves about what it means to have these people come in and be the only ones in the department. Second thing is support outside the department — such as specific coaching and training to navigate things experienced by minorities. A lot of the training such as on implicit bias and microaggressions is actually aimed at the majority, versus equipping URM faculty on navigating around them. Finally, we need support from departments in the form of more in-person meetings or additional time to apply for different funding mechanisms specifically aimed at addressing racial bias in the current peer review system [such as in the NIH grant system]. URM are more likely to seek other funding opportunities and departments have to show they're supportive of this.
How does this fit in with the recent uprisings in support of the Black Lives Matter movement?
This paper was written and accepted before Covid-19 and the recent uprisings. If I wrote this today, I would underscore that asking URM faculty to do diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) work is another burden. In medicine, when we have someone who can do rare and highly specialized work, that work is highly prized and that person is usually paid more — except DEI work. We need to treat DEI work the way we treat other special skills in medicine.
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