Leadership through Scholarship

Aug 24, 2022

Since late 2018, Drs. Kendall M. Campbell (University of Texas Medical Branch), José E. Rodríguez (University of Utah Health), and Judy C. Washington (Overlook Family Medicine and Atlantic Health) have been working with early to mid-career faculty as they develop their portfolio of scholarship.

It began with a small $15,000 grant from the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM) to teach seven new faculty members writing and research skills. The project was unique as it was sponsored by the Minority and Multicultural Health Collaborative, and it was specifically focused on those faculty who identified as underrepresented in medicine (URM). URM was defined as being part of one of the following groups: Black or African American, Latinx (Hispanic or Latino), American Indian or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, or a member of the LGBTQIA+ community. The first three cohorts, as well as the faculty (Campbell, Rodríguez, and Washington) have all identified as URM by this definition.

After the first cohort, the projects were institutionalized, and STFM obtained a much larger grant from the American Board of Family Medicine to fund the project as a fellowship. Drs. Campbell, Rodríguez, and Washington were awarded the 2021 Presidents Award from STFM, and the fellowship was re-branded as the Leadership through Scholarship Fellowship (LTSF).

In reality, Leadership through Scholarship Fellowship is a two-year fellowship. The first year is full of didactics—teaching research and scholarship skills, instrumental career mentoring, and leadership education. The second year, fellows spend time as scholar mentors. The scholar mentor year is designed to allow those who recently completed the fellowship to one, mentor new fellows, and two, work with them on their individual writing projects. Even though this program is relatively new, there have been many accomplishments. To date, the fellowship has had:

Cohort Publications

Title	Status		Type
Committee experiences of early career faculty who are underrepresented in medicine (committee tax)	Revise and resubmit	Family Medicine	Brief Report
What do Underrepresented in Medicine (URiM) Junior Family Medicine Faculty Value from a Faculty Development Experience?	Accepted	Family Medicine	Brief Report
Dear White People	Published	Annals of Family Medicine	Commentary
Intentionality Required to Equip a Diverse Physician Workforce with Tools and Infrastructure to Deliver Comprehensive Care	Published	JABFM	Commentary
Abolish the Minority Woman Tax	Published	Journal of Women’s Health	Editorial
Towards a common lexicon for equity, diversity, and inclusion work in academic medicine.	Accepted	BMC medical education	Original Article
Submit it again! Overcoming the Minority Tax by learning from rejected manuscripts	Revise and resubmit	PRiMER	Original article.
Addressing and Dismantling the Legacy of Race and Racism in Academic Medicine: A Socioecological Framework	Accepted	JABFM	Original Article
An Approach to Faculty Development for Underrepresented Minorities in Medicine	Published	Southern Medical Journal	Original article
Addressing the gate blocking of minority faculty	Published	Journal of the National Medical Association	Original Article
A Call to Restructure Primary Care for the Health and Wellbeing of Future Family Medicine Trainees	Accepted	Family Medicine	Letter to the editor
Residency Diversity Data Needed to Understand Reporting of Racism/Discrimination	Accepted	Family Medicine	Letter to the editor
Start with individuals, but ensure that antiracism becomes an institutional value	Accepted	Family Medicine	Letter to the editor
Racial concordance, rather than cultural competency training, can change outcomes	Accepted	Family Medicine	Letter to the editor
Remove race from the first sentence of the presentation but recognize the effects of racism on our patients.	Published	American Family Physician	Letter to the editor
In Response to: "Systemic Racism and Health Disparities: A Statement from Editors of Family Medicine Journals"	Published	Family Medicine	Letter to the Editor/p>
Minority Physicians Are Not Protected by Their White Coats	Published	Family medicine	Letter to the Editor
In Response to Bliss et al: Academic Medicine Must Look Inward to Address Leaky Pipelines	Published	Family medicine	Letter to the Editor
Re: Use of Point-of-Care Ultrasonography in Primary Care to Redress Health Inequities	Published	JABFM	Letter to the editor
Emphasizing the Role of Nonminorities in Achieving Racial Equity in Medicine	Published	Southern medical journal	Letter to the editor
Interventions to Screen for STDs Can Also Be Used to Screen for HPV Vaccination	Published	PRiMER	Letter to the Editor
Address White Fragility In Order to Engage in Racial Caucusing	Published	Family Medicine	Letter to the editor
Strengthening Family Medicine's Role in Diversity, Inclusion, and Health Equity.	Accepted	Family Medicine	Letter to the editor
A Peculiar Trend: Family Medicine Residents of Color are Less Burned Out	Accepted	Family Medicine	Letter to the Editor

One of the first articles published by this cohort showed what participants valued in the experience:

A "for URM (underrepresented in medicine), URM" approach created a safe space for junior URM faculty to discuss their experiences with navigating the field of academic medicine.
The minority tax and imposter syndrome were identified as barriers to scholarly productivity and career development.
Individual passion for clinical and scholarly topics was identified as a pathway to success in academic medicine.

"This is one of the most important professional development activities I have done. It is worth the resources and funds invested and more. I wish I had this earlier in my career, but I am happy it is now available. It feels like the beginning of something special. Thanks for making this possible."

"This experience has been remarkable, and I am very thankful to have been selected to participate in such a transformational activity. I am hopeful that bonds formed through our group will last through our participation in SFTM and lead to many collaborative activities moving forward. Our facilitators were excellent and 'real' -- they modeled behaviors and provided individual and group recommendations for strategies to help advance in our roles, departments, and careers, and I am immensely grateful for their leadership and flexibility."

"Thank you so much for breaking many barriers and creating opportunities for us."

"This is really the most fabulous meeting I've ever been to. It was personalized, it was very relevant to where we are in our careers, and it was comfortable. Having underrepresented in medicine mentors who can relate to our challenges and share the wisdom they have in navigating academia and learning how to become superproducers in research was invaluable."

In short, the fellowship has been a resounding success. We are excited to welcome our third cohort to the Leadership through Scholarship Fellowship and we are certain that once again we will see outstanding productivity from this cohort as well.

Key points and participant written feedback at the end of the workshop taken from Robles J, Anim T, Wusu MH, Foster KE, Parra Y, Amaechi O, Allen KC, Rodríguez JE, Campbell KM, Tumin D, Washington J. An Approach to Faculty Development for Underrepresented Minorities in Medicine. South Med J. 2021 Sep;114(9):579-582. doi: 10.14423/SMJ.0000000000001290. PMID: 34480190; PMCID: PMC8389351.