Careers in academic medicine and clinical practice for minorities: opportunities and barriers.

The United States has a shortage of physicians from underrepresented minorities. Under-representation of ethnic minority academic faculty is due to multiple factors, including an inadequate number of minority medical school graduates, indebtedness of minority postgraduate trainees, lack of awareness of opportunities in academic medical centers, lack of mentors, a shortage of role models, and environmental factors. Over recent years, the government, private industry, and some universities and medical schools have made efforts to remedy this situation. The problems, however, are complex and difficult to solve. There is a need to increase the pool of underrepresented minority students interested in careers in medicine; to promote medical student, graduate student, and house staff awareness of career opportunities in academics; to provide resources that enable students, house staff, and fellows to develop the skills necessary to succeed and survive in the academic arena; and to offer ongoing support for career development of junior faculty. A number of programs exist for attracting more minorities to academic medicine, but obtaining information on them is often difficult. The development of a centralized resource center where program information is readily available should be a priority. An effort to coordinate activities of existing programs by the Institute of Medicine and/or the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) is needed. A target goal should be developed for increasing minorities in graduate medical education and academic medicine similar to the AAMC's Project 3000 by 2000.