Developing Palliative Care Physicians through Mentoring Relationships

Abstract

BackgroundMentoring has been shown to improve resilience, sense of well-being, reduce staff turnover and to render psycho-emotional support in clinical medicine in general. Palliative care physicians face burnout, compassion fatigue and death anxiety. Whilst existing literature describes the benefit of formal mentoring programs and it's short to medium term goals, there is a lack of data describing the relational aspects of mentoring and its long term goals in shaping a physician. ObjectivesWe aim to explore the perspectives of mentors and mentees featured in editorials, perspective and opinion pieces to lend a glimpse into the long term impact, the relational and personal aspects of mentoring.

Understanding the Mentoring Environment Through Thematic Analysis of the Learning Environment in Medical Education: a Systematic Review

“…Davis and Nakamura (2010, p. 1060) characterise ME as a Bfunction of a relationship that rests upon a set of interactional foundations that allow a protégé to capitalize on the strengths of the mentor, and it facilitates behaviors that will enable the protégé to develop and internalize the requisite knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSAs) as fully as possible^. 20 Sng et al's (2017) delineation of the influential role of the mentor and host organisation within the mentoring relationships 3,12 and Tan et al's (2018) description of mentoring's evolving, entwined, goal-specific, context-sensitive, mentor-, mentee-, relational-and organisational-dependent nature (henceforth mentoring's nature), 3,4,12,18,27 which are not featured in Davis and Nakamura's (2010) definition, have cast doubts about its applicability in modern mentoring practice. 3,4,8,18,20 In addition, Bover-reliance on cross-sectional designs and self-report data, a failure to differentiate between different forms of mentoring (e.g., formal versus informal), lack of dyadic data, and the use of psychometrically questionable measures^2 8 at the heart of Davis and Nakamura's (2010, p. 1060) definition raise further concerns about their characterisation of MEs.…”

“…In the absence of robust studies of MEs, Pololi (2002) 29 and Kalén, Ponzer and Silén (2012) 30 suggest that MEs may be understood through studies of learning environments (LEs). 3,4,18,27,31,32 Data that likens LEs and MEs to personalised educational environments 31,33 that are influenced by the prevailing healthcare and education systems and the professional and personal factors impacting the learner, the tutor and the host organisation add traction to efforts understand MEs through the study of LEs. 3,4,8,12,18,19…”

“…1,2 Providing such individualised and holistic support depends upon an effective matching process, a nurturing mentoring relationship and a personalised mentoring environment. [3][4][5][6][7][8][9] The matching process involves pairing mentors with like-minded mentees with similar goals, values, beliefs and complementary characteristics to initiate personalised ties that will form the basis for effective mentoring relationships (MRs). 2,3,10 Successful MRs underpin mentoring's success [3][4][5][6][7][8][9] and pivot upon the quality of the ties between mentee, mentor and the host organisation.…”

“…5,[7][8][9] Inspired by studies that liken MEs to learning environments (LEs) and data highlighting common characteristics within MEs and LEs, this systematic review scrutinises LEs to better understand MEs and guide design and oversight of mentoring programmes. 3,4,18,27,[29][30][31][32] Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-019-05000-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.…”

Improving Mentoring Through a Blend of Novice and Peer, Near Peer and Group Mentoring: A Commentary

“…[1][2][3][4][5] Recent reviews suggest that a particularly effective means of providing such support lies in novice mentoring or mentoring between senior clinicians and medical students or junior doctors. However shortages of mentors, time constraints both on the part of mentees and mentors and concerns about the timeliness of mentoring support have raised concerns as to the viability of novice mentoring on a larger scale.…”