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 battle
3. Had a mentee that didn’t meet your
expectations
4. Felt awkward declining your mentor’s advice
5. Found your mentee missing deadlines
6. 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 Mentorship
Sambunjak 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”
Why bother?
• 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 interviews
Sambunjak et al., Mentoring in academic medicine: A systematic review.
JAMA, 2006; 296: 1103-1115.
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
Assistant Professors
satisfaction with career progression
Mentoring needs are met
Characteristics of the Ideal Mentor
• Altruistic
• Available
• Active
Hint: AAA
– Listener
– In their societies
– In research productivity
– “Affluential”
Characteristics of the Ideal Mentee
• Accountable
• Active
Hint: AAA
–Responsive
–Scheduling
–Agenda setting
• Appreciative
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, values
3. Build committee of mentors
Dave’s Top 10 For Role as Mentee:
Drive the relationship: ACTIVE
4. Set goals, timelines,
priorities
5. Create defined
schedule
6. Send agenda in
advance
7. Ask, tell, ask: Listen,
summarize
8. Summarize in bullets
Goal Setting: Clarify Expectations
A “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 time
10. 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
Authorship Issues
• 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.
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.