Exploring minority ethnic doctors' career transitions in medicine: a life course approach

在英国，医学是最具种族多样性的职业之一，但尽管如此，有证据表明，少数族裔医生在职业发展方面仍然比白人同行面临更多挑战。该项目的目的是增进我们对少数民族医生（以及准医生或“有志者”）如何通过医疗职业生涯的不同阶段（从a级学生到顾问）进行过渡的理解。我们正在努力发现他们面临的障碍，以及哪些策略有助于他们成功地从医学生涯的一个阶段进步到下一个阶段。我们打算利用这些知识来改善对少数民族医生的职业支持，并帮助提高NHS医生的保留率。NHS长期以来一直面临着确保医生数量充足的挑战。培训名额有限，医生需要多年的培训和获得必要的经验，但也存在职业倦怠和医生离职人数的问题。此外，医生提前退休，自2008年以来，医生提前退休的比率增加了两倍（Moberley, 2021）。这些因素，再加上大流行对我们保健服务的影响，意味着医生短缺可能会加剧，因为手头的医生越来越少，无法满足日益增长的需求。在大流行后的几年里，英国医生的保留和支持问题可能会变得越来越重要。少数民族医生是这一劳动力队伍的关键群体，也是一个传统上面临进步问题的群体，因此我们迫切需要深入研究少数民族医生如何在他们的职业生涯中过渡。我们认识到，在“少数民族”这一类别中存在着很大的多样性，因此该项目也将帮助我们更好地了解其他人口特征在少数民族医生（或有抱负的人）的职业生涯中所起的具体作用。我们想要研究来自不同少数族裔群体的少数族裔医生的成功障碍和策略是否不同（例如，数量较少的黑人医生是否面临不同的障碍或使用不同的策略，而亚洲医生的代表性更好？）；不同国籍（例如，在海外接受培训的医生有哪些具体的挑战和策略？）；以及不同的社会阶层背景（例如，来自一个经济资源较少的家庭，会如何影响你在医学事业上的选择？）我们还将详细研究少数民族男性和女性医生在多大程度上面临不同的障碍，并使用不同的策略来完成职业阶段的过渡。我们将研究早期、中期和晚期职业阶段医生的职业转变，以加深我们对面临的挑战和应对这些挑战所采取的策略在不同的职业阶段的理解。此外，就像在医学界一样，野心家经常在相似的年龄经历不同的职业阶段，这也将为我们提供深入的见解，了解不同世代的少数民族专业人士如何看待他们的种族与他们的职业过渡的相关性，以及他们采取的策略是否不同。我们将能够反思社会中关于种族的叙述的变化以及对促进多样性和包容性的日益重视是否影响了不同世代的医生对职业障碍和发展战略的思考方式。

Medicine is, within the UK, one of the most ethnically diverse professions but despite this, evidence suggests that ethnic minority doctors still face more challenges to their career progression than their white counterparts. The aim of this project is to increase our understanding of how ethnic minority doctors (and would-be doctors or 'aspirants') manage their transitions through the distinct stages of a medical career (from A level student to Consultant). We are seeking to discover what barriers they face and what strategies contribute to successfully being able to progress from one stage of a medical career to the next. We intend to use this knowledge to improve the career support to ethnic minority doctors and to help to improve doctor retention in the NHS.The NHS has long faced challenges with ensuring it has sufficient numbers of doctors. There are limited numbers of training places and doctors take many years to train and gain necessary experiences but there are issues of burnout and the number of doctors leaving the profession. In addition doctors are retiring earlier with the rate of early retirement of doctors tripling since 2008 (Moberley, 2021). These factors, combined with the impact of the pandemic on our health services, mean that the doctor shortage is likely to be exacerbated with fewer medics on hand to meet increased demand. Issues of retention and support for UK doctors are likely to increase in importance in the post-pandemic yearsAs ethnic minority doctors are a key cohort of this workforce, and a group that has traditionally have faced problems with progression, then it is urgent and appropriate for us to examine in some depth how ethnic minority doctors transition through their careers. We recognise that there is a great deal of diversity within the category of 'ethnic minority' hence project will also help us to better understand the specific role that is played by other demographic features in the career of ethnic minority doctors (or aspirants). We want to examine whether barriers and strategies for success are different for ethnic minority doctors from different minority ethnic groups (e.g. do Black doctors, who are fewer in number, face different barriers or use different strategies to Asian doctors who are better represented?); different nationalities (e.g. what are the specific challenges and strategies for doctors who trained overseas?); and different social class backgrounds (e.g. how does coming from a family with fewer financial resources influence the way you navigate a career in medicine?). We will also look in detail at the extent to which male and female ethnic minority doctors face different barriers and use different strategies to transition through the career stages.We will examine the career transitions of early, mid and late career-stage doctors to deepen our understanding of the challenges faced and the strategies adopted to address those challenges are different career points. In addition, as within medicine, careerists often move through different career stages at similar ages, it will also provide us within insight into how different generations of ethnic minority professionals perceive the relevance of their ethnicity to their career transitions and whether the strategies they adopt differ. We will be able to reflect on whether changing narratives around ethnicity in society and the increasing importance placed on promoting diversity and inclusion has influenced the way in which different generations of medics reflect on career barriers and the strategies for progression.