Mentoring stages: A study of undergraduate mentoring in palliative medicine in Singapore

Abstract

Background Mentoring nurtures a mentee’s personal and professional development. Yet conflation of mentoring approaches and a failure to contend with mentoring’s nature makes it difficult to study mentoring processes and relationships. This study aims to understand of mentee experiences in the Palliative Medicine Initiative (PMI). The PMI uses a consistent mentoring approach amongst a homogeneous mentee population offers a unique opportunity to circumnavigate conflation of practices and the limitations posed by mentoring’s nature. The data will advance understanding of mentoring processes. Methods Sixteen mentees discussed their PMI experiences in individual face-to-face audio-recorded interviews. The two themes identified from thematic analysis of interview transcripts were the stages of mentoring and communication. Results The 6 stages of mentoring are the ‘pre-mentoring stage’, ‘initial research meetings’, ‘data gathering’, ‘review of initial findings, ‘manuscript preparation” and ‘reflections’. These subthemes sketch the progression of mentees from being dependent on the mentor for support and guidance, to an independent learner with capacity and willingness to mentor others. Each subtheme is described as stages in the mentoring process (mentoring stages) given their association with a specific phase of the research process. Mentoring processes also pivot on effective communication which are influenced by the mentor’s characteristics and the nature of mentoring interactions. Conclusion Mentoring relationships evolve in stages to ensure particular competencies are met before mentees progress to the next part of their mentoring process. Progress is dependent upon effective communication and support from the mentor and appropriate and timely adaptations to the mentoring approach to meet the mentee’s needs and goals. Adaptations to the mentoring structure are informed by effective and holistic evaluation of the mentoring process and the mentor’s and mentee’s abilities, goals and situations. These findings underline the need to review and redesign the way assessments of the mentoring process are constructed and how mentoring programs are structured.

Enhancing Mentoring in Palliative Care: An Evidence Based Mentoring Framework

“…A newer perspective however sees the development of mentoring relationships occur in stages. To create a stable, effective and nurturing environment, Krishna et al 17 posit clear mentoring stages in the form of recruitment; aligning of expectations; the matching process; pre-mentoring meetings and training processes; and the subsequent mentoring relationship. For more targeted support and efficacious mentoring outcomes, it was suggested that each stage contain specific competencies to be met by the mentees in order for the mentoring relationship to advance.…”

Interprofessional Communication (IPC) for Medical Students: A Scoping Review

“…However, some of the review team believed that the decision to adopt directed content analysis to evaluate the data based on Miller's Pyramid (36)(37)(38) required further evidencing. As a result, 2 members of the study team carried out independent analyses of the data using a directed content analysis approach (41,42). The 2 members of the study team discussed their findings online and at face-to-face meetings and employed a "negotiated consensual validation" approach to determine final list of themes (43)(44)(45).…”

Educational roles as a continuum of mentoring’s role in medicine – A systematic review and thematic analysis of educational studies from 2000 to 2018

“…Mentoring nurtures professional and personal development [1], improves learning and clinical competency and enhances career satisfaction amongst mentees and mentors [2,3]. These successes are largely reliant upon the mentor's ability to nurture personalized mentoring relationships and steer the mentoring process [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. To do so, mentors adopt many supportive and educational roles [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16].…”