Success in Increasing Diversity: One Residency Program's Journey

Given the low rates of under-represented minority (URM) residents[1] and practicing physicians[2] in ophthalmology, ophthalmology training programs in the United States have been charged with increasing diversity to better represent our population. There have been great efforts from the Association of University Professors of Ophthalmology and the American Academy of Ophthalmology to expand the pipeline, particularly through the Minority Ophthalmology Mentoring program.[3] Other groups such as the Rabb Venable Research Foundation and the Student National Medical Association have also been crucial in encouraging and supporting URM students. Initiatives such as the Einstein Enrichment Program for 7th to12th graders and the Diversity Student Summer Research Opportunity Program for college juniors and seniors at our institution work to encourage URM students to go into medicine and biomedical sciences at an earlier stage. However, once URM students are in the pipeline as potential future ophthalmologists, they may encounter barriers in the admissions process based on traditional metrics such as United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) step scores and selection into Alpha Omega Alpha.[4] We believe it is the responsibility of residency program leadership to conduct the admission process with an eye toward matching qualified URM students. In our program at Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine, we have successfully increased representation in our residency program. We would like to share our process as a potential model for this endeavor.