Mentoring in urology: A way to improve confidence in surgical and clinical competencies

Abstract

Regarding the article published by Hori et al. (2024), we would like to comment on several things based on our experience in university teaching. 1 Lack of confidence has become one of the leading causes of educational problems in medical training, negatively influencing the ability to obtain surgical and clinical skills at all levels of training. 2 Although the authors identify it very well in their study, they need to raise some solutions to this problem within their discussion and provide a complete view of this latent problem in current medical training.The lack of confidence to perform surgery autonomously may be due to the lack of confidence building by the current medical education system worldwide, where the resident is not encouraged in his training but is only considered a passive element within the medical education system. In the face of that, mentoring is an innovative form of medical education based on the creation of the mentor role: a specialized physician in charge of boosting the student's skills through the promotion of activities that improve their self-esteem and confidence and allow them to achieve their dreams. 2,3 The following are the characteristics of a mentoring system developed in the context of a medical residency 3,4 :• Effective communication between physician and resident.• Motivation by giving degrees of autonomy regarding the procedures.• Stimulate scientific production.• Positive messages that improve confidence.Mentoring proposes renovating the traditional medical education system and improving the confidence levels of residents and medical students. Consequently, this enhances their autonomy and performance in medical activities. Also, it proposes a solution to the problems identified in the study's article. This type of message contributes better to the research, as it proposes solutions to the issues identified. It also contributes better to the research since it proposes solutions for the identified problems.