VIDEO: Plenary talk highlights 'deep lack of diversity' in neurology, offers solutions

In this video perspective, Bruce Ovbiagele, MD, MSc, MAS, MBA, FAAN, reviews his talk on diversification of the neurology workforce from a plenary session at the American Academy of Neurology annual meeting, which was held virtually.

Ovbiagele, who is professor of neurology and associate dean at the University of California, San Francisco, and chief of staff at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Health Care System, focused on the “deep lack of diversity in neurology” — particularly among Black, Latino and Native American people as well as women in leadership — and the reasons for the lack of diversity, such as an “insufficient pipeline” of individuals going into neurology to begin with and insufficient mentorship “for these underrepresented groups.” He also talked about why diversity is necessary.

“The disproportionate burden of neurological diseases tends to fall mostly on the populations who are underrepresented in medicine — people of African American extraction, Hispanic/Latino populations [and] Native American populations,” Ovbiagele told Healio Neurology, adding that these burdens “are only going to get worse.”

Ovbiagele talked about the strategies practitioners can employ to address this lack of diversity, such as a framework that focuses on determinants of health, disparities in health and diversity, and noted that factors related to lack of diversity can be addressed at the individual and the department/organizational level. Larger, ongoing strategies include a program by the NIH and the AAN that aims “to recruit and train more underrepresented in medicine academic neurologists” and the Society for Black Neurologists, a new organization that is “trying to minimize isolation among the very few Black neurologists around the country,” Ovbiagele said.