Stalled Progress: Medical School Dean Demographics

Abstract

Medical schools have an important directive: to train the next generation of physicians. Faced with a primary care physician shortage, increasing numbers of under-represented faculty leaving academic medicine, low representation of women in leadership positions, and an ongoing pandemic, medical schools have a duty to implement solutions to alleviate these issues. Efforts have been made to create more diverse medical school classes, but those efforts are not mirrored in senior faculty demographics. In this medical students' perspective piece, the authors analyzed the demographics of medical school deans in comparison with the United States' demographics and the current composition of active physicians. The authors looked at the specialty, race/ethnicity, and gender of medical school deans in 2019. Based on the analysis, in 2019 only 11% of deans were under-represented minorities, 16% of deans were primary care physicians, and 18% of deans were women. When compared with the makeup of physicians in the United States and the population as a whole, these numbers are unrepresentative of national demographics. By hiring deans with a variety of race/ ethnicities, specialties, and genders, schools set an important precedent that could lead to more pipeline programs, increased under-represented faculty retention, and more primary care physicians.