Diversity improvements through recruitment, retention, and advancement of underrepresented minority (urm) faculty: The role of peer-onsite-distance (pod) mentoring model

Recruitment, retention, and advancement of more minority physicians that remain in academic medicine continues to be an overlooked component of institutional infrastructure at academic health centers. Mentoring has been recognized as a potential catalyst to successful academia careers, and is particularly important to the career development of underrepresented minority (URM) faculty. Goal is to assess the effectiveness of the Peer-Onsite-Distance (POD) Model five years after inception. Methods: Self-administered survey instrument collected information from URM faculty who are members of the Faculty Diversity Community Outreach Program (FDCO). Information included members' current and past experience in career development activities, current level of need, level of interaction with mentor, types of mentoring issues addressed, and types of methods used to inform career discussions. The survey assessed the challenges of the program and solicited suggestions for improvement of the program. 22 URM at UAMS in the College of Medicine Department who are members of the FDCO. Results show the extremely important role played by mentors in the career development and promotion of URM junior faculty. In addition, the extent and nature of variation of the role of mentors across departments is highlighted. Collectively, findings suggest that the POD Model can serve as a vehicle for faculty engagement in career development of not only URM but ALL junior faculty and across departments. Conclusions: Improvement in recruitment, retention, and advancement through mentoring may lead to career satisfaction, an increase in faculty retention, and greater productivity. Findings may be used to develop interventions to enhance diversity at the university level for the population studied. Mentoring should be a required component of annual faculty evaluation as well as for promotion and tenure consideration. Implications: Diversity in the academia workforce requires vehicles for URM to engage in career development. The Peer-Onsite-Distance (POD) Model provides a promising model of engagement.