Mentorship is central to academic medicine and its missions, and it has long played a critical role in the training and career development of physicians and scientists. A growing body of literature has documented the positive impact of mentorship on various outcomes, including research productivity, academic promotion, faculty retention, and career satisfaction. These benefits span academic medical centers’ missions and have the potential to enhance biomedical research, patient care, education, and faculty diversity and leadership. In this Invited Commentary, the authors argue that a dynamic culture of mentorship is essential to the success of academic medical centers and should be elevated to the level of a major strategic priority. This culture of mentorship would capitalize on an institution’s intellectual resources and seek to develop leaders in biomedical discovery, patient care, and education. The bidirectional transmission of knowledge between mentors and mentees, through both formal programs and informal relationships, can foster the growth of faculty members needed to meet the complex challenges currently confronting medical schools and teaching hospitals. Developing a culture of mentorship requires a strong commitment by leaders at all levels to nurture the next generation of physicians and scientists as well as grassroots efforts by trainees and faculty to seek out and create mentorship opportunities. The authors conclude by outlining possible mechanisms and incentives for elevating mentorship to the level of a strategic priority to strengthen academic medical centers across their missions.
The publication of the Flexner Report in 1910 had an immediate and enduring impact on the training of African American physicians in the United States. The Flexner Report's thesis, "that the country needs fewer and better doctors," was intended to normalize medical education for the majority of physicians, but its implementation just 48 years after the Emancipation Proclamation obstructed opportunities for African Americans pursuing medical education and restricted the production of physicians capable of addressing the health needs of a nation that would grow increasingly diverse across the century.This article provides a working definition of structural racism within academic medicine, reviews the significant physician workforce diversity initiatives of the past four decades, and suggests the most successful of these possess strategies common to addressing structural racism (community empowerment, collaboration, clear and measurable goals, leadership, and durable resources). Stymied by popular ballot initiatives, relentless legal challenges, and dwindling funds, current and future efforts to increase diversity in medicine must maintain a focus on addressing the active remnants of structural racism while they build on the broad benefits of diversity in education and medicine. Despite creative and tireless efforts, no significant progress in expanding diversity within the U.S. physician workforce can be made absent a national effort to address this enduring barrier in the collective social, economic, and political institutions. The centennial of the Flexner Report is an opportunity for the academic medicine community to renew its commitment to dismantling the barriers to diversity and improving medical education for all future physicians.
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