The positive impact of a facilitated peer mentoring program on academic skills of women faculty

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In academic medicine, women physicians lag behind their male counterparts in advancement and promotion to leadership positions. Lack of mentoring, among other factors, has been reported to contribute to this disparity. Peer mentoring has been reported as a successful alternative to the dyadic mentoring model for women interested in improving their academic productivity. We describe a facilitated peer mentoring program in our institution's department of medicine.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Nineteen women enrolled in the program were divided into 5 groups. Each group had an assigned facilitator. Members of the respective groups met together with their facilitators at regular intervals during the 12 months of the project. A pre- and post-program evaluation consisting of a 25-item self-assessment of academic skills, self-efficacy, and academic career satisfaction was administered to each participant.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>At the end of 12 months, a total of 9 manuscripts were submitted to peer-reviewed journals, 6 of which are in press or have been published, and another 2 of which have been invited to be revised and resubmitted. At the end of the program, participants reported an increase in their satisfaction with academic achievement (mean score increase, 2.32 to 3.63; <it>P </it>= 0.0001), improvement in skills necessary to effectively search the medical literature (mean score increase, 3.32 to 4.05; <it>P </it>= 0.0009), an improvement in their ability to write a comprehensive review article (mean score increase, 2.89 to 3.63; <it>P </it>= 0.0017), and an improvement in their ability to critically evaluate the medical literature (mean score increased from 3.11 to 3.89; <it>P </it>= 0.0008).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This facilitated peer mentoring program demonstrated a positive impact on the academic skills and manuscript writing for junior women faculty. This 1-year program required minimal institutional resources, and suggests a need for further study of this and other mentoring programs for women faculty.</p

Enhancing Our Knowledge of Mentoring With a Person-Centric Approach

The intent of this commentary is to illustrate how some of the ideas discussed in Weiss and Rupp (2011) can be applied to the study of mentoring relationships. Mentoring has been defined as a developmental relationship between an individual (prot ´eg ´e) and a more senior and influential individual (mentor; Dreher & Cox, 1996). Mentoring is touted as a popular tool for employee development within organizations as well as a key means by which individuals achieve personal and career development across the life span (Allen & Eby, 2007). Mentoring relationships have been associated with a variety of beneficial outcomes for prot ´eg ´es (Allen, Eby, Poteet, Lentz, & Lima, 2004). But what makes some workplace mentoring relationships more effective and meaningful than others? Our view is that despite several decades of research and hundreds of articles, we know little about the mechanisms that give rise to effective and individually transformative mentoring. This lack of knowledge can be attributed, at least in part, to a reliance on the prevailing research paradigm that Weiss and Rupp describe

The Mentor\u27s Perspective: A Qualitative Inquiry and Future Research Agenda

The present study employed a qualitative research strategy for examining mentoring from the perspective of the mentor. A total of 27 mentors participated in in-depth interviews regarding their experiences as a mentor. The research focused on investigating issues related to the decision to mentor others. To meet this objective, four major areas of inquiry were examined: individual reasons for mentoring others, organizational factors that influence mentoring, factors related to mentor–protégé attraction, and outcomes associated with mentoring for the mentor. A number of interesting patterns of results were revealed through content analysis of the interview responses. Based on the results and an integration of other theoretical research, a series of propositions were presented to stimulate future research efforts

Organization-Level Mentoring and Organizational Performance Within Substance Abuse Centers

Individual benefits to those who have been mentored are well documented. The present study demonstrates that organization-level mentoring relates to overall organizational performance. In a study of 589 employees of 39 substance abuse treatment agencies, the authors found that agencies with a greater proportion of mentored employees also reported greater overall agency performance. Organization-level mentoring also related to organization-level job satisfaction, organization-level organizational citizenship behavior, and organization-level learning. Results provide justification for organizational investment of time and resources into efforts designed to facilitate mentoring, as well as support the notion that mentoring may provide a competitive advantage to organization