136 - Examining diversity recruitment efforts in US-based PM&R residencies: A survey of program directors on gender, ethnic and racial diversity and implications for recruitment efforts

Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate aspects of the current landscape of diversity within physical medicine and rehabilitation (PM&R) by surveying program directors (PDs) of US-based PM&R residencies. The secondary aim was to identify program characteristics that correlate with more diverse residency classes.

Design: A cross-sectional survey was distributed to PDs of US-based PM&R residencies with known contact information (95/100), with a completed survey response rate of 53% (50/95). The survey was designed by senior investigators to collect information about the current racial and ethnic diversity within these PM&R residency programs. The demographic percentages between the study’s results and the ACGME national averages were compared. The effect of individual recruitment efforts was analyzed using linear regression, and a diversity effort metric representing a combined effect of recruitment efforts was subsequently evaluated.

Results: The percentages of individuals identifying as women or those underrepresented in medicine (URiM) in this survey were comparable to the national averages seen in PM&R, though below those of the general US population. Analysis revealed no statistically significant association between the percentage of URiM residents in a program and commonly used diversity recruitment initiatives. An additional analysis utilizing the summative diversity effort metric revealed no statistically significant association between an overall diversity score and the percentage of URiM or women residents.

Conclusions: Despite a lack of statistically significant results, the diversity effort metric created in this study encompassed many frequently used DEI initiatives. Nearly all the programs in our survey acknowledged the importance of recruiting diverse classes of physicians, yet the actual implementation of DEI initiatives remains largely inconsistent, unstructured, and with variable success rates. The barrier may lie not in the initiative itself, but rather in its specific execution. Identifying unifying themes among successful recruitment initiatives remains an important challenge for the physiatry community.