The Importance of Mentor/Mentee Relationships

Tor-Mentor, Fo-Mentor, Ce-Mentor versus the

De-Mentee, La-mentee, Fer-Mentee

No Disclosures

Scary Mentorship: Tor-Mentor

What We’ll Address….

1. Had an issue with your mentor in which you felt like your input was undervalued

2. Wondered how to handle an authorship battle3. Had a mentee that didn’t meet your

expectations4. Felt awkward declining your mentor’s advice5. Found your mentee missing deadlines6. Been concerned about social boundaries

Mentorship (Strauss)Straus SE et al. Acad Med . 2013 January ; 88(1): 82–89. Characteristics of

Successful and Failed Mentoring Relationships: A Qualitative Study Across Two Academic Health Centers

• Success requires reciprocity, mutual respect, clear expectations, personal connection, and shared values

• Value: greater productivity (including obtaining more grants and publications than colleagues without mentors), more rapid promotion, academic retention

• Failure: poor communication, lack of commitment, personality differences, competition, COI, mentor’s lack of experience

Sambunjak on MentorshipSambunjak D et al. J Gen Intern Med 25(1):72–8. A Systematic Review of Qualitative Research on the Meaning and Characteristics of Mentoring in

Academic Medicine

• (1) desired characteristics and actions of the mentor and mentee, (2) initiation of mentoring relationships, (3) structure of mentoring relationships, (4) characteristics of mentoring relationships, and (5) barriers and possible solutions to mentoring

• “Mentees should prepare for the meetings with their mentors, provide an outline of their activities for discussion, complete tasks that were agreed upon and respond honestly to feedback”

• Mentoring facilitates career advancement and productivity–Serves as a catalyst for success

• Data in part support this in academia–Mentees allocate more time for

research, write more papers, get more grants

• Lack of mentorship is listed as a specific barrier to achieving publication and completing projects, exit interviewsSambunjak et al., Mentoring in academic medicine: A systematic review.JAMA, 2006; 296: 1103-1115.

Why bother?

BMC Med Educ. 2012 Mar 23;12-14

• “At the end of the program, participants reported an increase in their satisfaction with academic achievement (mean score increase, 2.32 to 3.63; P = 0.0001), improvement in skills necessary to effectively search the medical literature (mean score increase, 3.32 to 4.05; P = 0.0009), an improvement in their ability to write a comprehensive review article (mean score increase, 2.89 to 3.63; P = 0.0017), and an improvement in their ability to critically evaluate the medical literature (mean score increased from 3.11 to 3.89; P = 0.0008). “

Why bother? Increase satisfaction with career progression

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Mentoring needs are met

Characteristics of the Ideal Mentor

• Altruistic• Available• Active

–Listener– In their societies– In research productivity– “Affluential”

Hint: AAA

Characteristics of the Ideal Mentee

• Accountable• Active

–Responsive–Scheduling–Agenda setting

• Appreciative

Hint: AAA

Multiple Mentoring Roles

• Process mentors: academic and career development but may not have expertise in science of career

• Content mentors: scientific and conceptual development, but may not be good at process mentoring

• Peer mentors: having just done it before, or going through it with you

• Work-Home balance mentors: have similar values, expectations, situations

• Outside mentors: give you a break from HOPKINS, know you from before, fresh perspective

Dave’s Top 10 For Mentees:Get Started: ACCOUNTABLE

1. Be proactive: take ownership of your career (and the pursuit of mentors)

2. Know your mission, vision, values3. Build committee of mentors

Dave’s Top 10 For Role as Mentee:Drive the relationship: ACTIVE

4. Set goals, timelines, priorities5. Create defined schedule6. Send agenda in advance7. Ask, tell, ask: Listen, summarize8. Summarize in bullets

Goal Setting: Clarify ExpectationsA “Contract”

• Establish roles and responsibilities• Credit for shared projects

–Authorship, grants etc: Big source of potential strife

• Commitment to work together–Set Goals (next exercise)

• Work effort, accountability, credit• Length of relationship?

Establishing Rules of Confidentiality

• Protection of information• Except in situations of…..

– Harm to self or others–Criminal activity– Impaired behavior–Sexual harassment

Summarize: Verbal at Meeting and Email Afterwards

• What was said• What was agreed• What was not agreed• Action items• Accountability and time frame• Next appointment, goals

Dave’s Top 10 For Mentees:APPRECIATIVE

9. Respect mentor’s time10. Express appreciation

It’s the little things…..

• Turn off cell and pager• Take notes• Read references provided

beforehand• Be presentable• Respect the mentor’s time, schedule

coming and going• Inform of lateness, cancellations

Appreciation

• The Power of Appreciation• Results• Affirmation• One good turn deserves another

• Pat: You are the 1• investigator of your mentor’s project and have been working with colleague of same rank, Robin, for 2 years in the research group. Family issues (that are highly personal) arose that delayed your analysis of data and creation of a first draft of the paper for 4 months as you dealt with your mother’s debilitating condition and assisted living placement in Cameroon. You were off on FMLA X 12 weeks with no email access. You are able to concentrate better now. You return to find a circulated draft of the paper with you as 2nd author.

• Robin: The important results of the paper were presented 6 months ago at a national meeting and you feared being “scooped” by another group. There had been no progress on the paper and Pat missed 3 consecutive monthly research meetings. You decided to independently analyze the data and wrote a first draft of the paper to discuss today. You have taken the liberty of moving yourself to first author.

Authorship Issues

How to Gracefully Decline Advice

• Think about the reasons in advance, carefully, for declining the advice–You do not need to decide immediately

• Provide the reason for declining the advice– I cannot make that deadline–My religious background prevents me for

taking that course of action– I cannot take on that task

• Provide acceptable alternative

Agree to Disagree

• Affirm other person’s approach, feelings, values

• State, in non-judgmental way your own approach

• State the importance of the relationship

• State (lack of) consequences of disagreeing

• Move on

The Power of Authenticity

• "A 'No' uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a 'Yes' merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble”

• Gandhi

Role Play: Mentor and Mentee:Your mentor says to you:

• “I really enjoy our mentoring sessions together. I have some time free this weekend. Why don’t you come to my home around 9 pm and we’ll discuss your career path and goals over a bottle of Merlot?”

• Discuss in pairs how you’d respond to this if your current mentor said this to you.

“Had a Mentee That Did Not Meet My Expectations”

• Steps:– “Other Story”–Were expectations stated / emailed?–Were expectations reasonable?–Were deadlines assigned?–What was my “contribution” to the failure?–One off or pattern?–Discussion, mediation, arbitration, or

divorce

Mentor : Mentee Dysfunction

• Several warnings• What is my contribution?

–Patterns?• Strauss: competition between

mentors and mentees contributes most to a failed relationship– Insecurity

• Treat like doctor-patient relationship: no abandonment

Quotable Quote

• Who said this?

I learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

• Maya Angelou

That’s My Advice

David M Yousem MD, MBA

Panel Discussion

Panelists• Yuri Agrawal, M.D., M.P.H.• Jennifer Haythornthwaite, Ph.D.• Nick Puts, Ph.D.• David Yousem, M.D., M.B.A.

Moderator• Melissa Thompson, J.D.