Mentoring

Adesegun Fatusi
Dept. of Community Medicine
College of Health Sciences, OAU, Ile-Ife
 Outline
 Definition & Concept
 Rationale for promoting mentoring
 What do mentors do?
 Mentees’ expectation
 Mentoring in action: reflection on experiences
 Factors associated with successful mentoring
 Challenges to successful mentoring experience
 Conclusion: Prospect for Ife Medical School
The Concept & Relevance of
Mentoring
 What is Mentoring?
 Mentoring is a process whereby an
experienced, highly regarded person (the
mentor) guides another individual (the
mentee) in the development and
examination of their own ideas, learning,
and personnel and professional
development
-
SCOMPE, 1996
 An old concept; a new concept
 Mentorship in Greek mythology
 Ulysses was reputed to have entrusted his son to the care
and direction of Mentor – his old & trusted friend – before
setting out on an epic voyage
 Odysseus entrusted entrusted the education of his son
Telemachus to a good friend “Mentor”, who became the
counsellor, guide, tutor, coach and sponsor for his protégé
 Modern mentorship has its genesis in the US - the
dev. of new entrepreneurial spirit in the 1970s
 Application to medicine more recent
Mentors are role models
who also act as guides for
students’ personal &
professional development
over time
 Skills & Focus
Teacher Mentor

Focus Focus
Skills
- The learner
-Faculty -Active
training goal listening - Her/His
development
- Results -Coaching
-Supporting &
-Monitoring -Counselling
encouraging
& improving
-Analytical
learning & - Promoting
& Decision-
students’ understanding
making
performance of self &
skills
ambitions
 Dimensions of mentoring in
academic medicine
 Faculty-undergraduate students

 Faculty-postgraduate
students/trainees
 Student-student

 Faculty-faculty
 Mentors in Medical Practice can…
 … be instrumental in conveying explicit
academic knowledge required to master
curriculum content
 … enhance implicit knowledge about the
“hidden curriculum” of professionalism,
ethics, value & the art of medicine not learned
from texts
 … provide emotional support and
encouragement
 Goal of Mentoring in Medical
Practice: An Example
 “The overall goal of our student-mentorship
program is to advance the professional
development of our student during the 1 st two
years of medical school through regular
meeting with skilled, trained faculty
facilitators
- New York University of Medicine
What Mentors Do
 Metaphors for Mentor’s Role

The mentor as:

 coach
 counsellor

 role model

 guide & dream maker

 The mentor as a Coach
 The four stages of coaching
 Observation- the coach sees, in detail, the level of
performance & area for improvement
 Analysis – the cause of poor performance is
identified & understood
 Modelling – the coach demonstrates or explains
correct performance
 Practice & Review – the new behaviour is tried
out under supervision
 The mentor as a Counsellor
 Counselling is a way of helping people to help
themselves
 Main aims of counselling are to:
 See their present situation more clearly
 Understand fully how they feel about it
 Determine what, if anything, they want to do about it
 Make realistic plans for achieving what they want
 The mentor as a counsellor discusses options & help
mentee towards deciding what is best for them
 The Mentor as a Role Model
 Mentors, by their behavior, provide a standard
against which the mentee can form a sound
judgment of how they want to go about
seeking success in their own career or personal
lives
 The mentor’s behaviour, practices and
performances envisions the mentee
Mentorship: A 3-Dimensional Model

Career Dimension

Job/Life Skills Psychosocial

Dimension dimension
Making it Work
 Factors Associated with Successful
Mentoring Relationship
 Understanding of the dynamics of
mentoring relationship
Stages of mentoring relationship
 Early Stage: Resistance & Dependence
 Middle Stage: A Meeting of Equals

 Final Stage: Social or as required

 Key Factors for Success (2)
 Clarity of expectation on both sides
Mentee’s expectation include:
 Willingness of the mentors to listen to
their perspective & share their concern
 Friendship & respect

 Being put through experiential situations

to acquire needed skills
Experiential Learning Cycle

Have an
Plan Future action
Experience

Make wider Examine &

sense of experience Reflect
 Key Factors for Success (3)
 Careful selection of appropriately skilled
and available mentors
 Active listening skills
 Adequate commitment of time, energy &
resources
 “Master Teachers” – apt to teach
 Committed to professional growth
 Have leadership skills
 Confident and caring people
 Key Factors for Success (4)
 Willingness of potential mentees to
make honest use of the potentials of the
relationship
 Matching of mentor-mentees in terms
of critical background characteristics
& life experiences
 Institutional mechanism & support for
mentoring relationships
 Key Factors for Success (5)
 Flexibility in the relationship processes
 Potentials mentees should be allowed to
choose the person they want as mentor &
type of support they need
 Potential Mentors should have the right to
accept or decline to take on certain
individuals as their mentees
 Three Experiences
 The University of Washington Mentorship
programme for Population Leadership
Fellows
 Mentorship in the context of OAU-Gates
MPH programme in Reproductive Health
 Mentorship and the “IN-DEPTH”
approach in Community Residence &
Public Health training
Conclusions
 Ife Medical School: Moving the
agenda of mentorship forward
 Need to move from “paper advisory” system
to real mentoring system
 Training of mentors
 Due recognition of mentors & creation of
other incentives
 Orienting student body and faculty in term of
the mentorship system
 Ensure good mix of time use b/w mentorship
and other responsibilities
 The process of
mentoring should be
positive, facilitative, and
developmental