Grants We Funded

Abstract

Impact Statement: There is no shortage of research describing the role of physician diversity in improving patient outcomes and furthering workplace equity [1-7]. Attempts to enhance diversity and remove barriers to URiM entry into plastic surgery, when effective, have had marginal benefit, and minority student representation remains stagnant or decreasing in many surgical specialties [15]. In order to effectively address remaining barriers and design interventions to improve diversity recruitment to plastic surgery, we need to appreciate the voice and experiences of URiM applicants. This study outlines a critical gap in our knowledge which, when filled and applied to interventions, could have downstream effects on URiM representation and patient care for generations to come.

Project Summary: A unique privilege afforded by plastic surgery is the opportunity to work with patients from all walks of life and throughout the lifespan. Unfortunately, this diversity of practice is not mirrored by an equally diverse profile of plastic surgery trainees or faculty. To address this, plastic surgery has effectively characterized the extent of the diversity issue at every level of training. Additionally, interventions aimed at removing barriers to entry have been implemented within plastic surgery and beyond [9-11]. Nevertheless, students who fall into the under-represented-in-medicine (URiM) category in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, sexual-orientation, or socioeconomic status remain poorly represented or altogether not accounted for. The rationale for this study is to amplify the voices of URiM student applicants to plastic surgery to ultimately guide interventions aimed at minority applicant recruitment and retention. Our primary aim is to both quantify and qualify the “diversity experience” of applicants, with an emphasis on URiM students. This “diversity experience” involves one's perceptions and experiences related to diversity, ranging from the resources used to assess diversity to the interactions with programs and how these come together to influence one's ultimate rank list. The long-term goal of this study is to use the insights gleaned from this study to develop informed, targeted methods to improve diversity outreach at the residency application level. Our overall objectives in this application, which are the first steps to attainment of our long-term goal, are to (i) describe the attitude towards diversity and utilization of diversity resources by the general plastic surgery applicant pool, (ii) qualitatively assess the diversity experience of a subgroup of plastic surgery applicants, with a focus on underrepresented minorities, and (iii) translate our findings into guidelines for plastic surgery residency programs. Our central hypothesis is that plastic surgery applicants of a minority background place increased emphasis on the importance of diversity yet find the current interventions scarce or ineffective. Phase II of our efforts will involve implementation of targeted interventions informed by our findings, aimed at enhancing key elements of the “diversity experience.” We will implement these interventions at the University of Pennsylvania and study and publish on their impact for the education readership at-large.

Biography
Dr. Taylor was raised in Springfield, IL and completed his undergraduate studies in Chemistry at Washington and Lee University. He attended medical school at Vanderbilt University and subsequently completed the combined plastic surgery residency at Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland. To further his development as a craniofacial surgeon, he completed a craniofacial fellowship at the Hospital "Gea" Gonzalez under the direction of Dr. Fernando Molina and Dr. Fernando Ortiz-Monasterio. He joined the full-time faculty at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center where he has concentrated on his clinical interests in cleft and craniofacial surgery and research interests in minimally-invasive craniofacial surgery and bone tissue engineering. He is particularly interested in the role of periosteum as a cell source and angiogenic modulator of bone tissue engineering and it is for this work that he has been awarded the 2010 AAPS/PSEF Academic Scholar Award.