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Leadership in Surgery pp 193–204Cite as

What Does It Mean to Be an Underrepresented Minority Leader in Surgery

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Part of the book series: Success in Academic Surgery ((SIAS))

Abstract

A culturally diverse work force is important for addressing health disparities in the United States. Yet underrepresented minority in medicine (URMM) physicians remain scarce in the health care work force. In fact, there is a small number of African- and Hispanic-American surgeons in the surgical work force and especially in academic surgery. One of the key barriers is a dearth of URMM candidates in the pipeline. Furthermore, the gap between the proportion African- or Hispanic-Americans and the percentage of URMM students graduating from U.S. medical schools continues to widen. As a result, URMM surgical leaders face burdens based on several practical and social expectations (e.g. brown tax). This chapter explores several concepts including: the obstacles that URMM surgeons face in ascending to positions of leadership in academic surgery; the approach to overcoming some of these barriers as illustrated by pioneer URMM surgical leaders; and the roles of the URMM surgical leader.

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Acknowledgment

The authors wish to thank the following outstanding leaders in academic surgery, who happen to be from an underrepresented minority in medicine, for their continuing support, mentoring, and insightful contributions to this chapter: L.D. Britt, Andre Campbell, Edward Cornwell, Steven Stain, Patricia Turner, and Selwyn Vickers.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Surgery, Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Jeffrey S. Upperman

  2. Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Jeffrey S. Upperman & Jessica N. Rea

  3. Millier School of Medicine, Miami, FI, USA

    Henri R. Ford

Authors
  1. Jeffrey S. Upperman
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  2. Jessica N. Rea
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  3. Henri R. Ford
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jeffrey S. Upperman .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Surgery, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Melina R. Kibbe

  2. Department of Surgery, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA

    Herbert Chen

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Upperman, J.S., Rea, J.N., Ford, H.R. (2019). What Does It Mean to Be an Underrepresented Minority Leader in Surgery. In: Kibbe, M., Chen, H. (eds) Leadership in Surgery. Success in Academic Surgery. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19854-1_18

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19854-1_18

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-19853-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-19854-1

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