Overall, radiology residency programs exhibit high levels of LGBTQ+ inclusivity. But there's still room for improvement, according to a study published August 28 in the Journal of the American College of Radiology.
"Radiology departments, even those that consider themselves progressive and welcoming, can have unintentional gaps in their policies and practices or may use antiquated language in group contracts and other documents that can potentially be harmful to LGBTQ+ employees," wrote a team led by Jordan Perchik, MD, of the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
An inclusive LGBTQ+ residency program is "crucial to the recruitment and retention of competitive and diverse applicants," Perchik and colleagues explained, noting that a 2022 radiology LGBTQ+ inclusion audit offered a "roadmap for assessing the inclusivity of a program's policies, facilities, culture, and engagement."
But how have the audit results translated to U.S. radiology residency programs? The investigators conducted a follow-up study to address the question, including nine programs enlisted from the Radiology Residency Education Research Alliance (RRERA). They modified the original audit for multi-institutional use, queried the programs between December 2023 and February 2024 -- distributing a pre- and postaudit survey to assess participants' subjective sense of LGBTQ+ inclusivity in their programs -- and ranked programs' inclusivity on a scale of one to 10 using a series of goals/milestones.
The group found the following:
- Audit scores ranged from 6 to 9 out of 10; no program achieved a perfect score.
- High-scoring audit categories included "inclusive facilities" and "institutional culture," with eight out of the nine programs reporting all milestones achieved in those areas.
- The lowest-performing audit categories were "department culture" (3 of 9 programs) and "community engagement" (4 of 9 programs).
- After the audit, overall the programs reported "improved self-perceived inclusivity, with post-audit survey scores increasing in areas related to department policy, inclusive facilities, and LGBTQ+ community outreach."
In terms of further improvement regarding LGBTQ+ inclusivity in radiology residency programs, the team noted that most of the programs could improve the development and promotion of an inclusive department culture, even though postaudit survey data showed "community engagement" and "facilities" as the categories that respondents stated needed the most work.
"The significance of this discrepancy is uncertain and could be related to an underlying [assumption that establishing] DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] related programs will require a significant amount of time, personnel, and financial investment," the authors wrote.
In any case, a multifarious healthcare team is "better equipped to serve a diverse patient population," according to Perchik and colleagues.
"Diverse departments cultivate wide-ranging perspectives, promote cultural competency, spark innovation, and ultimately, can lead to improved patient outcomes," they concluded. "The LGBTQ+ community in the U.S. continues to experience health disparities, discrimination, and harassment … As [a] generation of new physicians enters medical training, ensuring an inclusive learning environment will be essential for medical schools and residency programs."
The complete study can be found here.
