The Challenge of Diversity in Radiology

The problem of lack of diversity in radiology, manifested by proportional under representation of women and other groups underrepresented in medicine (URiMs), including American Indian or Alaska Native, Black or African American, Hispanic, Latino, or of Spanish origin and native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander populations, has been recognized for almost a decade. Unfortunately, as Oates et al. document in their article, very little progress has been made over that time in correcting this problem. Several radiology societies have started to address this issue, including the Society of Chairs of Academic Radiology Departments (SCARD). The Equity and Inclusion Committee of SCARD has developed a Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) dashboard in order to provide academic departments who are attempting to improve the diversity of their programs a way of measuring their progress and comparing it to benchmarks. The reasons for this initiative and the resulting DEI dashboard are described in the article. The importance of metrics has been documented in two recent articles on the subject, ^,  so this tool will undoubtedly be of value. Although the dashboard may appear somewhat daunting to a department starting out on a program to improve diversity, the authors emphasize that a department could start by measuring just a few metrics that are most relevant to its situation. They also provide references to descriptions of successful programs which have already been undertaken by some academic departments which could provide useful models. A number of strategies have also been studied and recommended for improving diversity and equity in departments. ^,