Paul Greig: Mentoring the Mentors
Paul Greig is directing the Mentorship Program of the
Department of Surgery. This is a component of the
Faculty Development Pillar of the Department’s Five
Year Strategic Plan. Department of Surgery Strategic Plan
Implementation Coordinator Joanna Giddens is implementing
the strategic plan and Ori Rotstein is directing this
pillar. Ori’s view is that academic surgeons need mentoring
early in their careers, a view that is well supported in the
literature. In a systematic review of 39 studies, Sambunjak
et al. found that mentoring had an important influence
on personal development, career guidance, career choice,
and research productivity, including publication and grant
success (JAMA 2006;296:1103-15). Faculty members with
a mentor had more grants as PI, more publications in
peer reviewed journals, and reported greater career satisfaction.
Jackson et al. found that “lack of a mentor” was
cited as the 1st or 2nd most important factor hindering
academic progress by 95% of participants (Acad Med.
2003;78:328-334.). In their mid-career, surgeons can benefit
from coaching, as described so well by Atul Gawande
in his article Personal Best (1) (http://www.newyorker.com/ magazine/2011/10/03/personal-best). Later in their careers,
surgeons often need advice about transition into their “next
career” or retirement.
Paul has read extensively about the mentoring process
and its value to new Faculty. He notes that the
Department of Medicine’s website is very well developed
on mentoring. “A little more structure and Departmental
assistance to our Mentors and Mentees would facilitate
further success of our mentorship program and more
importantly the academic success of our newly recruited
Faculty.” As a practical approach, he has reviewed all the
Memoranda of Agreement written in the past 3 years for
the 36 new members of the faculty from 2011 to the
present. The template of the MOA specifies the identification
of a mentor. However, of the 36, only 22 had
mentors, and 36% or 14 did not.
His plan is to create a program that
1. Identifies a Mentor Leader or “Champion” in each
Division
2. Identify those new faculty without Mentors and
working with the Divisional leads, identify an
appropriate Mentor
3. Provide Mentor & Mentee education/training at the
Centre for Faculty Development through separate
workshops for mentors and mentees
4. Develop the metrics to determine the effectiveness
of the Mentor-mentee relationships and provide the
opportunity for change
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To date, Paul has met with and presented the Mentorship
program to each of the divisions at their monthly meetings,
and requested the identification of the division’s
“Mentor Champion”. Joanna Giddens has contacted all
our newly recruited Faculty, and confirmed their current
Mentors. The next steps are: identification of Mentors
for those without and invite all to the workshops for
mentors and mentees. Through the Center for Faculty
Development, they are developing ½ day seminar/workshops
for mentors and a similar one for mentees to be
held in February and March.
The second component of the plan is evaluation of
the program. The outcomes will range from how many
meetings occurred to how many grants and publications,
how many family problems were encountered, and was
the relationship perceived as being effective? Paul proposes
that a checklist-type of tool might be implemented
that mentors can use at each meeting to chart progress.
He plans to develop such a tool in conjunction with the
Divisional Champions’ input. The plan is for mentors
to know each other and to stimulate each other in their
learning and developing their role.
“Clinical success is easy, academic success is not”,
says Paul, who is working with the full time faculty first
and will later expand the program to include part-time
faculty. Jim Rutka initiated this program; he will be
able by next September to show the new faculty in his
opening Grand Rounds and identify their mentors, an
acknowledgement of the importance of the role and the
process of mentorship. It is anticipated that Mentors will
be rewarded and a Mentor of the Year will be named.
There is an active mentorship focus in the Center for
Faculty Development at St. Michael’s Hospital. Karen
Lesley is a well-informed leader in this area. Paul is
optimistic about the Mentorship Program, because the
structure is well defined, accountability will be emphasized,
and there will be metrics of success. There will be
reporting back to the Department from the mentors and
from the Divisional Coordinators.
Mentor is the mythical Greek father of mentoring programs,
who was responsible for mentoring Telemachus,
the son of Odysseus, while Odysseus was off fighting the
Trojan Wars for ten years (see Editor’s Column for an
evaluation of his performance).
REFERENCES
1. Gawande, A. Personal Best, The New Yorker, October 3,
2011 Issue
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