Building an Equity-Centered Ecosystem: University of Utah Health as a Microcosm.

Academic medicine, and medicine in general, are less diverse than the general patient population. Family Medicine, while still lagging behind the general population, has the most diversity in leadership and in the specialty in general, and continues to lead in this effort, with 16.7% of chairs identifying as underrepresented in medicine. Historical and current systematic marginalization of Black or African American, Latina/e/o/x, Hispanic or of Spanish Origin (LHS), American Indian/Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, and Southeast Asian individuals has created severe underrepresentation within health sciences professions. Over the last 30 years, the percentage of faculty from these groups has increased from 7 to 9% in allopathic academic medicine, with similar increases in Osteopathic Medicine, Dentistry, and Pharmacy, but all lag behind age-adjusted population means. Traditionally, diversity efforts have focused on increasing pathway programs to address this widening disparity. While pathway programs are a good start, they are only a portion of what is needed to create lasting change in the diversity of the medical profession as well as the career trajectory and success of underrepresented in medicine (URiM) health professionals toward self-actualization and positions of leadership. This article elucidates all parts of an ecosystem necessary to ensure that equity, diversity, and inclusion outcomes can improve.

Minority Tax on Medical Students: A Review of the Literature and Mitigation Recommendations.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Accreditation standards for MD- and DO-granting institutions require medical schools to recruit a diverse student body and educate students about diverse groups of patients. The minority tax is a summary of responsibilities assigned to racial and ethnic underrepresented faculty to achieve diversity, equity, and inclusion in medical institutions in addition to their typical academic workload. This article provides a narrative review of medical students' experiences of the minority tax and recommendations on how medical educators can support an equitable learning environment by eliminating the minority tax. METHODS: We searched the PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus databases, Google Scholar, and medical society websites, blogs, and fora for terms, including minority tax, medical students, and undergraduate medical education. We included publications if they discussed the underrepresented in medicine medical students' experiences of the minority tax. RESULTS: Our search yielded six peer-reviewed original research articles and six publications of commentaries, opinion pieces, or news pieces. Students who were underrepresented in medicine reported spending more hours on diversity efforts compared with students who were not underrepresented; moreover, students reported that they had to sacrifice academic excellence in order to fulfill these additional diversity duties. CONCLUSIONS: The minority tax among medical students constitutes an unequitable and unjust barrier to career advancement, and it likely represents an early cause of attrition in the pipeline of underrepresented in medicine academic faculty. Medical educators can enact specific recommendations to eliminate or mitigate the minority tax experience for medical students.

Submit It Again! Learning From Rejected Manuscripts.

Rejection of manuscripts by academic journals can be devastating for the early-career family medicine faculty members. Taking experience from teaching early-career underrepresented in medicine faculty members writing and scholarship skills, we identify and explain five lessons to be learned from rejected manuscripts. The five lessons are: (1) rejections teach journal scope, (2) rejections teach process, (3) rejection should lead to resubmission, (4) rejections reflect writing effort, and (5) rejections happen to papers, not authors. Early-career family medicine faculty can use these lessons for reassurance and to adapt behaviors to remain in the scholarship arena.

A health sciences library promotes wellness with free yoga.

BACKGROUND: Yoga is a popular physical exercise activity with mental health benefits. Public and academic libraries have offered free yoga as their primary movement-based program. CASE PRESENTATION: In an attempt to bolster wellness and connect to the health sciences community, an academic health sciences library offered free yoga as a ten-week trial series in summer 2016. At the end of the trial series, weekly attendance and online feedback data determined that this series should continue. CONCLUSIONS: Yoga provides health professionals and students with a welcomed midday break from a stressful work environment. Additionally, by partnering with yoga instructor trainee programs, the financial burden is low for the library.