PRIDE Peer Mentor Development Program: Lessons Learned in Mentoring Racial/Ethnic Minority Faculty

Abstract

Introduction: Mentorship is crucial for academic success. And yet, there are few mentoring programs that address the needs of underrepresented, racially/ethnically diverse junior faculty conducting health-related research in the United States.Methods: To expand mentoring capacity for these racially/ethnically diverse faculty, we developed a Peer Mentor Develop­ment Program (PMDP) to prepare near-peers, who have similar characteristics and personal experiences, to provide support to participants in an NIH-PRIDE funded Insti­tute. The PMDP program is designed based on the 8-year experience of the Mentor Development Program of the NYU-Health and Hospitals Clinical Translational Science Institute. Annually, up to six alumni are selected into the PMDP, participate in the 12-hour program over 4 days, are paired with 1 to 3 scholar participants to mentor and join monthly PMDP conference calls during the ensuing year.Results: We describe the program, partici­pant experience and lessons learned from our first 18 peer mentors in three PMDP cohorts. Additionally, all 18 peer mentors completed a post-evaluation survey to as­sess the program. Overall, peers agreed that participating in the PMDP enhanced most of the specific skills targeted. Participants rated 53%-86% of skills as “more than be­fore” participating in PMDP, demonstrating the appreciation and impact of the program.Conclusions: The PMDP may be a model for higher education and academic medi­cine programs committed to mentoring and retaining racially/ethnically diverse faculty and ultimately contributing to reducing entrenched health disparities between majority and minority populations.Ethn Dis. 2020;30(2):321-330; doi:10.18865/ ed.30.2.321

A scoping review of peer mentoring in medicine

“…The majority of peer mentoring programmes (84%) were in person; all met in small groups, with as few as three per group, 18,25 although two programmes had 9–12 participants per group 12,29 . Most groups met about once a month 12,18,21–23,32 . Slightly more than half (58%) included formal didactics as part of the programme.…”

“…Congregating peers can mitigate a hierarchy that may be present in medicine due to differences in academic rank or status. Moreover, several programmes targeted female faculty and/or junior faculty, including one for URMs 21 ; these historically disempowered groups in academic medicine may especially benefit from the formation of peer‐based alliances. For the academic leader aiming to create peer mentoring structures, our second recommendation is to set an intention that aligns with the benefits of peer mentoring, and potentially grouping faculty by similar characteristics to create conducive spaces for career support.…”

A system-wide health sciences faculty mentor training program is associated with improved effective mentoring and institutional climate

“…In previous studies, UR faculty have reported lower perception of inclusion and less satisfaction with the academic diversity climate, networking, and intention to remain at their current institution [14,15]. While several mentoring programs for UR faculty demonstrated improvements in scholar productivity, none examined UR faculty satisfaction with quality of mentoring or their perceptions of the institutional climate [31,38,39]. Professional development programs like NCLAM and HCOE can provide a community of practice and networks for junior faculty to thrive; our data suggest the added benefit of FMTP integrated into established faculty development programs enhances junior faculty engagement.…”

Mentoring Underrepresented Minority Physician-Scientists to Success

“…Peer (or near-peer) mentor development programs offer a great opportunity to train people to be mentors early in their own careers and to expand the pool of mentors. 13,14…”