Internal Medicine

Multiple professional societies in internal medicine have published statements announcing their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion and have specifically named the diversification of their respective organizations as one step in a multipronged approach to address health disparities and inequities. This chapter aims to support these stated goals by providing a multi-decade overview of trends in the sociodemographic composition of Internal Medicine, presenting challenges to the diversification of the workforce with a historical lens and concluding with a description of evidence-based interventions that address these challenges. Lending merit to the approach of workforce diversification, this chapter begins by introducing the academic and practical benefits of diversity in the healthcare field and cites the contributions of International Medical Graduates (IMGs), women, and those who are racially and ethnically underrepresented in medicine (UIM). Subsequently, the chapter comprehensively examines current and historical trends in diversity, from the late 1900s to 2020, and throughout the academic trainee continuum, from recruitment of medical student applicants to faculty positions, with a focus on the internal medicine specialty. The chapter then assesses the limitations and barriers that institutions encounter when attempting to diversify. The chapter concludes with a discussion of solutions and interventions that can be implemented by internal medicine programs, drawing on research from programs that have achieved improvements from their diversification efforts. Although diversification of the physician workforce represents a crucial step in a multipronged approach to mitigate health disparities and address health inequities, the U.S. physician workforce continues to demonstrate glaring differences in representation among specific sociodemographic groups. This chapter presents data on the proportions of these sociodemographic groups in internal medicine and solutions to address barriers in the diversification of the internal medicine physician workforce.