Contributors: Dale Guenter and Catherine Tong
Summary
Do you have a mentor? We are guessing you could name a few, and they may not even know that you consider them your mentor! Mentorship is as old as humanity, and ubiquitous in medicine, yet evidence to support it is patchy. It is a wonderful, warm, relational way to engage in learning, teaching, developing, and evolving. It is essential for learning a new job or role. It is generally considered different from coaching, which leans more into goal-setting, observation, data collection, and specific feedback. It is bi-directional, benefitting both mentees and mentors. Effective mentorship requires certain qualities of both the mentor and the mentee, and some degree of ‘fit’ in the relationship. A mentorship relationship may grow organically, or from some degree of intentional organizing. And even when best intentions and planning are at work, mentorship relationships can go sour. In our academic family medicine setting, mentorship relationships could be made up of any combination of staff, allied health clinicians, students, residents, faculty – at any level of experience or expertise.
Take-away Tidbits
- Key characteristics of a successful mentor may include enthusiasm, generosity, patience, a sense of humour, knowledge and competence. (1)
- It is important that the mentee does not act as an empty vessel, merely receiving the mentor’s advice and wisdom, but rather as an active participant in shaping the relationship. (1)
- Mentoring works best when the mentor and mentee have similar values and interests; ‘matches’ should be self-identified and not assigned. (1)
- Unsuccessful mentoring relationships may result from poor communication; lack of commitment; personality differences; sense of competition: conflict of interest; and a lack of experience of the mentor. (1,2)
From A Burgess et al.(1)
Resources:
- Burgess A, van Diggele C, Mellis C. Mentorship in the health professions: a review. The Clinical Teacher 2018; 15: 197–202. https://doi.org/10.1111/tct.12756
- Chopra V, Edelson D, Saint S. Mentorship Malpractice. JAMA 2016; 315:14. 1453-4. doi:10.1001/jama.2015.18884
- McMaster DFM Faculty Mentorship Toolkit (2020, faculty portal web page).