Academic medicine : journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges
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As educators, researchers, clinicians, and administrators, faculty serve pivotal roles in academic medical centers (AMCs). Thus, the quality of faculty members' experiences is inseparable from an AMC's success. In seeking new methods to assess equity in advancement in academic medicine, the authors developed the Rank Equity Index (REI)-adapted from the Executive Parity Index, a scale previously implemented within the business sector-to examine national data on gender and racial/ethnic equity across faculty ranks. ⋯ In a comparison of 2017 and 2007 data, REIs across both race/ethnicity and gender were lower in 2007 for nearly all groups. REI analyses can highlight inequities in faculty rank that may be masked when using aggregate faculty proportions, which do not account for rank. The REI provides AMCs with a new tool to better analyze institutional data to inform efforts to increase parity across all faculty ranks.
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Racism and bias are fundamental causes of health inequities, and they negatively affect the climate of academic medical institutions across the United States. ⋯ Next steps include assessing the scalability of the VR module; determining effective complementary engagements; and measuring the module's longitudinal effects on racial empathy, discrimination, and institutional climate. As VR becomes more common in medical education, developing VR modules to address other forms of discrimination (e.g., sexism, homophobia) could also benefit the institutional climates of medical schools and health systems as academic medicine continues to build toward health equity.