Wellness and diversity, equity, and inclusion support across residencies in core specialties - a national cross-sectional study

four core specialties (OB/GYN, Anesthesia, General Surgery, and Internal Medicine). BACKGROUND:The concept of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) not only affects the quality of patient care, but also impacts the wellness of the resident, affecting their sense of belonging, confidence, and loyalty to the home program.Various studies have been conducted to analyze DEI characteristics of different specialties with focusing on different ways to combat burnout and improve wellness within residency programs.This study is the first to objectively leverage a systematic approach to benchmark wellness and DEI attributes across multiple specialties.METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study was conducted between March 15 and April 14, 2022 and focused on all AC-GME-accredited OB/GYN (OG), Anesthesia (AN), General Surgery (GS), and Internal Medicine (IM) program websites across the United States.The website assessment was based on 22-attributes devised by two focus groups and contingent on accessibility of the sites.The first focus group consisted of 9 medical students that developed the criteria based on prior research and online commentary.The concentrations included DEI-related semantics, gender/ethnic representation in faculty and residents, and wellness verbiage.The second group consisted of 40 voluntarily recruited students at a large midwestern medical school who piloted and refined the criteria.The website analysis was thereafter performed by an independent cohort of 16 medical students and junior residents.All researcher and focus group participants were racially, ethnically, and gender diverse to ensure representative benchmarking.Racial diversity was defined as the medical student researcher's self-perceived identification of at least one African-American/Black, Hispanic/Latino, American Indian/Alaska Native, or Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander faculty member and resident among their colleagues based on publicly-accessible website photographic representation.Gender diversity was defined similarly as the medical student researcher's photo-based self-perceived identification of at least one member of a differing gender compared to the majority (a minimum of female and/or one male) within the faculty members and resident class.Wellness and diversity, equity, and inclusion support across residencies in core specialtiesa national cross-sectional study