Getting by with a little help from my friends? Expanding mentorship for career development and satisfaction

Collaboration and teamwork are well-established cornerstones of modern clinical and academic medicine as well as research, including radiology. Mentorship is also part and parcel of daily medical practice and training. As it is, there is a wide range of opinions on the effectiveness of standard mentorship models. In some cases, academic departments may offer mentorship to fulfill a requirement rather than as a sign of commitment to ensuring that all mentees receive the guidance they seek. Although mentor-mentee relationships might have arisen organically, and such situations are still possible, the overall lack of face-to-face interactions in many departments in the COVID era suggests the need to emphasize formal mentoring programs. We appreciate the overall successes of mentorship in medicine as well as radiology, while acknowledging that, like anything, it is not perfect. Because the processes of decision making and career planning are similar across fields, a peer-to-peer cross-specialty mentorship model could yield untold benefits to early-career radiologists who may receive valuable advice from friends or colleagues outside of medicine, or simply outside of radiology, at crucial points in their careers. There is no ideal formula or format for mentoring, however. We endorse the theory or intentions of mentorship and believe that its effectiveness can take several forms. Having a formal program in place, with built-in flexibility to address our rapidly changing times, remains highly desirable. Our proposal is to expand this notion to a “whatever works,” “anything goes,” or, in the spirit of the COVID era, a hybrid model.