Training for minoritized individuals in gut-brain axis research

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Project Summary Diversity in the workplace, including the laboratory, leads to more creativity, innovation, and productivity. Yet, in 2022 the AAMC reported that full-time medical school faculty by rank was ~57% white at the assistant professor level and ~74% white at the full professor level (https://www.aamc.org/data-reports/faculty- institutions/interactive-data/2022-us-medical-school-faculty). When the numbers are calculated based on gender, the data are more sobering with almost equal numbers of men vs. women at assistant professor (47,433 vs. 44,370 faculty) but less than half of full-time faculty were women at the full professor level (28,810 vs. 11,403) and of the women faculty, only ~3217 were not white. Thus, although we know diversity improves innovation, medical schools are unable to achieve or even maintain a minimal amount of diversity. Given the drop in the proportion of women and historically marginalized communities from assistant to full professor ranks, it is clear that medical school environments are not supporting retention of diverse talent. The reasons for this drop are multi-factorial, and therefore will require a long-term and multi-faceted approach. However, I hypothesize that mentorship is one factor that is more heavily weighted against others in contributing to maintaining diversity. Therefore, my overarching goal of this proposal is to improve my own mentorship approach to incorporate greater cultural awareness in one-on-one mentoring and in laboratory management to generate successful trainees with greater career satisfaction.