ACRM Diversity Complementary Integrative Rehabilitation Medicine fellowship program experience "

Research Objectives: To evaluate the impact of ACRM Diversity Complementary Integrative Rehabilitation Medicine(DCIRM) Mentoring & Career Development Fellowship Program(2021) on selected scholarship activities

Design: Cross-sectional and longitudinal survey analysis

Setting: A remotely delivered workshop with a focus on Complementary Integrative Rehabilitation Medicine (CIRM) followed by remote mentoring and scholarship activities from September 2021 to September 2022.

Participants: Early career allied health professionals from diverse backgrounds.

Interventions: NA

Main Outcome Measures: A project specific, non-standardized survey was designed to evaluate participants’ engagement in the remote workshop program. Scholarship components related to research productivity, networking, mentor support and collaborations were evaluated.

Results: A total of 35 participants were included in the workshop. Most participants were from USA (23.5%) and female(77 %). Other countries included Malaysia and India. Over 50% were Asian. 62% of participants had less than 5 years of clinical and/or research training. Majority of participants reported benefitting from the workshop, shared peer experiences, networking, mentors, grants, and research. In an informal survey, participants mentioned that the fellowship program helped “By providing us opportunities to explore research and facilitate growth as leaders in academia”. They also expressed that the workshop strengthened their research abilities. Common themes among participants were high satisfaction with the friendly environment, high camaraderie among workshop participants and mentors. The one-year follow-up survey results will be further discussed in this scientific paper.

Conclusions: Designing and implementing inclusive training that addresses the unmet needs of a diversified, well-prepared biomedical workforce in CIRM is feasible and can have a positive impact on early career development of researchers from diverse backgrounds. The ACRM DCIRM Mentoring & Career Development Fellowship Program was supported by an NIH National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) grant. Preliminary survey data indicates that participants benefitted from this fellowship program, which aligns with NIH NCCIH priorities to facilitate inclusion of individuals from URM. It's important to perform a post completion longitudinal survey assessing the benefits and drawbacks of this program and tracking the effects of program activities on participant’s career developments.

Author(s) Disclosures: Declared