In a new JBJS “What’s Important” article, Dr. David N. Bernstein and Dr. Addisu Mesfin discuss cross-cultural mentorship in orthopaedics, offering their personal reflections as a Black mentor and White mentee.
As the authors state, “Recent events in the United States have magnified our society’s continued struggle to effectively address structural racism. While many within the medical community have pledged to tackle race-related injustices, much of the measurable progress will take time to quantify accurately. However, one of the ways in which positive change may happen, and happen more expeditiously, is through active efforts to recruit Black learners into medical school and residency programs so that the country’s physician workforce is truly more representative of the populations it serves. Indeed, many in medicine, including leaders within orthopaedic surgery, have turned their attention toward this critical mission… It is no secret that mentorship is crucial to the professional and personal development of physicians and scientists, especially as a means to improve real diversity and inclusion, not just the appearance of it…” Read the full article here.
