Career service in cross-cultural healthcare mission work is the ambition of many people around the world. However, premature termination of this expected long-term service mitigates against achieving the goals of the individual and the organization. The lingering challenge of high rates of missionary attrition impacts the long-term effectiveness of the work and the health and well-being of the workers. One of the keys to reducing premature attrition is cross-cultural training for these individuals, provided it offers the right content, through the best medium, at the time of greatest perceived need by the missionary. This paper applies the Dreyfus Model of skills acquisition to the process of mentoring career healthcare missionaries in a progressive manner, utilizing a mentoring method. These missionaries can flourish in their work and more effectively achieve their individual and organizational goals through strategic mentorship that clearly defines a pathway for growing their cross-cultural skills.

In this study of career healthcare missionaries (N = 393), 47.9% of female missionaries and 42.1% of male missionaries reported experiencing anxiety, while 32.5% of female missionaries and 27.5% of male missionaries reported experiencing depression. For both females and males, depression severity scores showed a bimodal distribution of more and less severe depression, suggesting a clearer delineation for mild and severe depression. Regression analyses found that low role satisfaction was associated with both anxiety (p = .006) and depression severity (p = .004). A model is proposed describing the relationship between role satisfaction and its correlates: job expectations prior to arriving on the field, receptivity of the host country, gender, and imbalance of work and ministry. This model also describes the bidirectional relationship between role satisfaction and the existence of depression and/or anxiety.