Hispanics and Academic Medicine: Creating an Inclusive Community, Academic Success, and Leadership Careers for Impactful Healthcare Change

Abstract Our nation is at a demographic inflection point with the Hispanic population currently being the largest minority group, and its child population set to approximate the non-Hispanic White child population within the next 30 years. To create healthy communities for our nation’s Hispanic population, present and future, their health disparities will need to be addressed. Academic medicine has the responsibility to do this, but without Hispanic academic leaders involved in the process, efforts are likely to be less effective and take longer to address Hispanic health disparities. This chapter provides a roadmap for developing a greater number of Hispanic academic health leaders by drawing on the reflections of the authors, themselves senior Hispanic academic leaders, about their paths and the insights they gained about the academic environment through personal experiences. The sections cover the following: (1) Who are we and why are Hispanics important in academic medicine; (2) How do Hispanics succeed in academic medicine: the process of acculturation and inclusion; and (3) Hispanic academic leadership and creating change. The authors then provide a brief discussion of their career paths to exemplify how their academic medical leadership developed. The goal of this chapter is to help create the next generation of Hispanic academic leaders who will address the health disparities in our communities.