title: Specialty choices, compensation, and career satisfaction of underrepresented minority faculty in academic medicine.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Despite efforts to increase the numbers of underrepresented minorities (URMs), only 3.9% of medical school faculty are URMs. The authors compared the specialty choices, compensation, and career satisfaction of minority faculty with those of their majority counterparts to determine whether there were differences that might affect the recruitment and retention of minority faculty.
  
  
  METHODS
  In 1995, the authors mailed a self-administered survey to a stratified random sample of 3,013 eligible full-time salaried faculty in 24 randomly 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 were majority faculty, 195 were URM faculty, and 149 were other-minority faculty. Similar proportions of the three groups were in the primary care specialties. Only 11% of the URM respondents were in basic science departments. There was no significant difference in adjusted mean compensation between majority, URM, and other-minority faculty. However, URM faculty were significantly less satisfied with their careers (adjusted scores: 60 versus > 65; p = .001) and more often considered leaving academic medicine within five years (58% versus < 45%).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Given the demographic changes of the U.S. population, these issues should be addressed by deans and department heads in order to enhance recruitment and facilitate retention of URM faculty in academic medicine.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Boston Medical Center, Boston University, Massachusetts, USA. anita@hivnet.ubc.ca
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Palepu
authors.forename: P L
authors.initials: PL
authors.lastname: Carr
authors.forename: R H
authors.initials: RH
authors.lastname: Friedman
authors.forename: A S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Ash
authors.forename: M A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Moskowitz
mesh_terms: D003625:Data Collection; D005180:Faculty, Medical / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007588:Job Satisfaction; D008297:Male; D008511:Medicine / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008913:Minority Groups / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012456:Salaries and Fringe Benefits; D013038:Specialization; D014481:United States