The Society of Hospital Medicine Promotes Exclusionary DEI Scholarship

In a bid to advance DEI, the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) is promoting a scholarship aimed at “underrepresented” medical students and sponsored by an organization with a history of racial discrimination.

SHM’s “Hospital Medicine Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Scholarships for Students” provide two third-year medical students with $25,000 awards.

SHM developed this scholarship fund “to support the growth of a more diverse hospital medicine workforce by identifying medical students who have been traditionally underrepresented in the field,” the scholarship announcement states.

However, it appears that to achieve this goal of diversity, SHM is restricting the scholarships to individuals of certain backgrounds.

The scholarship eligibility criteria note that applicants must be “underrepresented in medicine or from an economically disadvantaged background who demonstrates academic excellence and is in good academic standing in their program of study.”

SHM does not define “underrepresented in medicine.” As Do No Harm has shown, this term has been used in other contexts to refer to certain racial and ethnic minority groups.

There’s a further wrinkle to this story: the scholarship is sponsored by Vituity, a medical staffing agency with a history of promoting racial discrimination. 

Do No Harm filed a lawsuit against Vituity in 2023 over the “Bridge to Brilliance Incentive Program” which was solely offered to Black physicians along with a sign-on bonus of up to $100,000.

Following our lawsuit, Vituity removed the advertisement for the Black Physician Leadership Incentive from its website.

Given these factors, SHM’s scholarship raises concerns of racial discrimination. 

SHM should make it abundantly clear that this scholarship is available to applicants of all racial and ethnic backgrounds.

No student should be denied an opportunity or an award – especially one so sizeable – because of their race.