• Charles A Odonkor, Anthony Tucker-Bartley, Brooks Leitner, Cynthia Chude, Salman Hirani, and Lawrence Poree.
• Department of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation, Interventional Pain Medicine, Division of Physiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, Yale New Haven Hospital, 47 College Street, New Haven, CT 06510, USA. Electronic address: charles.odonkor@yale.edu.
• J Natl Med Assoc. 2022 Jan 1; 113 (6): 612-615.

AbstractRacial health disparities persist despite increased public awareness of systemic racism. Due to the inherent subjectivity of pain perception, assessment and management, physician-patient bias in pain medicine remains widespread. It is broadly accepted that increasing racial diversity in the field of medicine is a critical step towards addressing persistent inequities in patient care. To assess the current racial demographics of the pain medicine pipeline, we conducted a cross-sectional analysis of medical school matriculants and graduates, residents, and pain fellows in 2018. Our results show that the 2018 anesthesiology residency ERAS applicant pool consisted of 46.2% non-Hispanic White, 7.0% non-Hispanic Black and 5.8% Hispanic students. The population of 2018 anesthesiology residents included 63% non-Hispanic White, 6.8% non-Hispanic Black and 5.4% Hispanic persons. Of the total eligible resident pool for pain fellowships (n = 30,415) drawn from core specialties, 44% were non-Hispanic White, 4.9% non-Hispanic Black and 5.1% Hispanic. Similar proportions were observed for pain medicine and regional anesthesia fellows. We briefly discuss the implications of the shortage of non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic representation in pain medicine as it relates to the COVID-19 pandemic and suggest approaches to improving these disparities.Copyright © 2021 National Medical Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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