Eliminating Mentors in Favor of Collaborators: Review and Challenge of Current Mentorship Literature

Abstract

Context: Mentorship in academic medicine, surgery, and surgical subspecialties has been examined broadly in the literature at the student, resident, early, and senior faculty level. These studies have explored mentorship in general, as well as gender specific differences or issues that arise. Less studied is the idea of collaboration in surgical training. Evidence Acquisition: The objective of this review is to summarize the current literature on mentorship and delineate its future. Results: Traditional paradigms of the mentor plotting the career of the mentee may not be possible in the future. In the ever-changing practice of surgery, time constraints are only increasing, making the act of mentoring more difficult. Conclusions:The mentee or trainee must take a more active role and seek out mentorship, seek out collaboration, be more proactive, and communicate their needs and career goals early on.

Laparoscopic Liver Resection by Distance Mentoring – Trinidad to Barbados: A Report

“…The mentors’ personalities would also contribute to the success of this exercise. The ideal surgical mentor should be one who is experienced, well-trained, and willing to help junior colleagues to develop professionally [7, 14-15]. The mentor should be easily accessible and able to dedicate time to addressing the mentee’s needs [7, 14-15].…”

“…The ideal surgical mentor should be one who is experienced, well-trained, and willing to help junior colleagues to develop professionally [7, 14-15]. The mentor should be easily accessible and able to dedicate time to addressing the mentee’s needs [7, 14-15]. One should also take into account other factors that may influence the relationships, such as generational differences [7], cultural factors [16], gender [16-17], and work ethic [7, 16].…”

“…Therefore, thought should be given to developing reward systems to encourage mentoring [14, 18]. This may include explicit funding, providing protected time for mentoring activities, or incentives, such as academic promotions and/or earning leave time [7, 14-15, 18]. Whatever is chosen to encourage mentors should be clearly discussed beforehand so that expectations are clear.…”

History of Laparoscopic Surgery in the English-Speaking Caribbean and Progress Amidst a Mix of Challenges and Opportunities

“…If more regional surgeons became available as mentors, this could help to develop MIS. The ideal surgical mentor should have extensive training [40,41], experience [41], good technical skills [1,10,11,12], emotional intelligence [14, 18,19], professional integrity [19,22], patience [18,42] and good communication skills [43,44]. This may also require formal training.…”