Perceptions of pediatric chief residents on minority house staff recruitment and retention in large pediatric residency programs

This study examined methods of recruiting and retaining minority house staf f at US residency training programs. A 28-item questionnaire was mailed to pediatric chief residents at 78 US training programs with more than 35 resi dents. The response rate was 74%. Programs were characterized by patient po pulations served, number of ethnic/racial minority house staff and faculty, and the presence of minority house staff support systems within the instit ution. In this largely urban sample, minority recruitment and retention was reported as an explicit priority by 40% of pediatric chief residents. The majority (71%) reported that their house staff recruitment committees had n o explicitly defined recruitment goals regarding minority house staff. Seve nty-seven percent reported that within their departments, recruitment effor ts toward minorities were no different than for nonminorities. Overall, few minority house staff and minority faculty were identified in the respondin g institutions. The most frequently reported intra-institutional support sy stems for minority house staff included individual pairing with faculty adv isors from the same minority group (29%), an affirmative-action office loca ted at the institution (8%), and the existence of a minority faculty suppor t group (4%). These results indicate that pediatric chief residents may not be fully aware of the specific challenges related to the recruitment and r etention of minority physicians, and most house staff recruitment committee s do not have explicit goals in this regard.