Resources for Holistic & Inclusive Family Medicine Residency Recruitment
Increasing diversity in residency programs requires intentional planning for each step of recruitment. Use these resources to learn evidence-based practices in the holistic review of applications, plus how to reduce bias in the interview process. These resources were compiled by the STFM Graduate Medical Education Committee.
Aggregated Resources on Holistic and Inclusive Residency Recruitment
Published Papers on Best Practices and Bright Spots
Published Papers on Holistic Review and Structured Interviews
Guidelines and Recommendations
Resources on Mitigating Implicit Bias
Published Papers on Best Practices and Bright Spots
- Increasing URiM Family Medicine Residents at University of Utah Health
Highlight: In order to increase the number of URiM residents who interviewed and matched at one program, the screening process added points specific to resiliency (i.e. first generation to attend collect, economic disadvantage, major health event, parent during medical school etc) and de-emphasized academic achievements (only needed to pass USMLE/COMLEX). - Antiracism in Residency: A Multimethod Intervention to Increase Racial Diversity in a Community-Based Residency Program
Highlights:- Increased racial diversity through four components: mission statement revision, diversity task force, anti-racism curriculum, and ongoing system to evaluate progress
- The interview process added a scoring rubric to place greater value on the “lived experience” of being a person of color (POC), developed standardized interview questions, and established an academic threshold that predicted success.
- Success in increasing the diversity of residents stemmed from leadership support including the commitment of resources.
- Matching Our Mission: A Strategic Plan to Create a Diverse Family Medicine Residency
Highlights:- Increased the number of URiM applicants and percentage matched through three interventions: increasing outreach to URM candidates, revising interviews to minimize bias, and analyzing recruitment data.
- Department of Family Medicine created the Director of Diversity Programs position, a role to lead the development, implementation and evaluation of diversity recruitment efforts.
- Residency interviews intentionally had URiM candiates meet at least one URiM resident/faculty. Interviews were blinded to one resident and one faculty to minimize bias (halo effect) and structured interviews with standardized questions were implemented.
- Leading From the Front: An Approach to Increasing Racial and Ethnic Diversity in Surgical Training Programs
Highlights:- Implemented a three-faceted approach for URiM surgical resident recruitment: development of URiM-focused 4-week visiting clerkship program with a stipend; use of holistic review of residency applications including the ask to reduce, if not abolish, threshold scores for metrics (USMLE, number of authored publications); targeted outreach to URiM candidates through the University’s Alliance of Minority Physicians.
Published Papers on Holistic Review and Structured Interviews
- Reporting of USMLE Step 1 as Pass/Fail: A Benefit for Residency Programs and Those Underrepresented in Medicine?
- Evidence-Based Inclusive Graduate Medical Education Recruitment Strategies
- Using Structured Interviews to Reduce Bias in Emergency Medicine Residency Recruitment: Worth a Second Look
- SHARPening Residency Selection: Implementing a Systematic Holistic Application Review Process
Guidelines and Recommendations
- Holistic Review, Mitigating Bias, and Other Strategies in Residency Recruitment for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: An Evidence-based Guide to Best Practices from the Council of Residency Directors in Emergency Medicine
Includes:- Information about GME and UGME practices and considerations to help mitigate bias and encourage diversity, equity, and inclusion
- Pre-interview preparedness strategies including defining DEI goals, assessing program readiness, formation of diversity committees, and ensuring access to UIM applicants.
- Invitation and interview strategies, including the initial holistic review of applications, the process of selecting applicants for interviews, and the interview process itself.
- Post-interview strategies, including the ranking process, approaches to second-look opportunities, and post-interview communication.
- AAIM Recommendations to Promote Equity and Inclusion in the Internal Medicine Residency Interview Process
Includes:- Information about bias reduction in the interview process, including an examination of systemic bias in specific demographic groups.
- Charts with examples of potential mitigation strategies and interventions.
- Detailed suggestions for interview structures that may assist in bias mitigation.
Resources on Mitigating Implicit Bias
- Kirwan Institute - Implicit Bias Module Series
These four interactive web-based modules cover general understanding, real-world implications, our own biases, and mitigating unwanted bias. Each module is divided into a short series of lessons, many taking fewer than 10 minutes to complete. - Harvard Implicit Association Test
An extensive list of Implicit Association Tests (IAT) are offered. Participants are requested to report their attitudes or beliefs about each topic and provide some personal information. Each study takes about 10 minutes to complete with a report and interpretation provided. - How Clinicians and Educators Can Mitigate Implicit Bias in Patient Care and Candidate Selection in Medical Education
Dr. Quinn Capers, Professor of Medicine at Ohio State College of Medicine, discusses implicit bias by physicians and the impact on selection for training with evidence based tools to reduce implicit bias during interpersonal interactions and candidate selection. - Reducing implicit racial preferences: I. A comparative investigation of 17 interventions
In this paper published in 2014, Calvin Lai and a team of colleagues from departments of psychology from 15 international institutions compared the effectiveness of implicit bias mitigation strategies and demonstrated varying efficacy in 8 out of 17 interventions studied.
