Specialty choices, compensation, and career satisfaction of underrepresented minority faculty in academic medicine

Purpose. Despite efforts to increase the numbers of underrepresented minori ties (URMs), only 3.9% of medical school faculty are URMs, The authors comp ared the specialty choices, compensation, and career satisfaction of minori ty faculty with those of their majority counterparts to determine whether t here were differences that might affect the recruitment and retention of mi nority faculty. Method. In 1995, the authors mailed a self-administered survey to a stratif ied random sample of 3,013 eligible full-time salaried faculty in 24 random ly selected medical schools. Those schools, which had at least 200 faculty, did not include the Puerto Rican or historically black medical schools. Results. Of the eligible faculty surveyed, 1,807 (60%) responded; 1,463 wer e majority faculty, 195 were URM faculty, and 149 were other-minority facul ty. Similar proportions of the three groups were in the primary care specia lties. Only 11% of the URM respondents were in basic science departments. T here was no significant difference in adjusted mean compensation between ma jority, URM, and other minority faculty. However, URM faculty were signific antly less satisfied with their careers (adjusted scores: 60 versus > 65; P =.001) and more often considered leaving academic medicine within five yea rs (58% versus < 45%). Conclusion. Given the demographic changes of the U.S. population, these iss ues should be addressed by deans and department heads in order to enhance r ecruitment and facilitate retention of URM faculty in academic medicine.