Mentors, Coaches, and Facilitators

Mentorship is key to academic career success, resulting in improved research productivity, success in promotion and tenure, and career and job satisfaction. Health scholars especially benefit from a mentor who helps them to overcome professional barriers, produce scholarship, and develop both self-esteem and self-confidence. Successful mentoring relationships are characterized by interpersonal rapport, shared values, and high-quality communication. The work of identifying and initiating a mentoring relationship may fall to the junior faculty member, who should begin the process with a values clarification exercise and well-defined goals. The mentee’s professional behaviors will help both the mentor and the mentee to be successful and sustain the relationship. These include timeliness, setting the agenda, clarifying expectations, soliciting and responding to feedback, and communicating with honesty and respect. When the traditional mentor-mentee dyad is not available locally, other models may be used, such as coaching for specific skills or needs, peer functional mentoring, and mosaic mentoring. Mentors from professional societies, although geographically distant, may be especially effective.