Dear Editor,

We read with interest the article entitled “Great Expectations: Principal Investigator and Trainee Perspectives on Hiring, Supervision, and Mentoring” by Kaps et al. We agree that a good mentor–mentee relationship can improve outcomes of academic training and contribute positively to research output; however, we would like to highlight the following

Ong, John

Swift, Carla

English

Apollo (Cambridge)

1419LETTER TO THE EDITOR | Hepatology CommuniCations, Vol. 2, no. 12, 2018  Mentoring and Supervision in Academia: Establishing Distinctions to Manage ExpectationsDEAR EDITOR,We read with interest the article entitled “Great Expectations: Principal Investigator and Trainee Perspectives on Hiring, Supervision, and Mentoring” by Kaps et al. We agree that a good mentor–mentee relationship can improve outcomes of academic training and contribute positively to research output; however, we would like to highlight the following:First, the principal investigator (PI)–trainee rela-tionship is not synonymous with a mentor–mentee relationship. PIs supervise their research trainees, but not all trainees choose their PIs as mentors. There can be many reasons for this, including differences in personality, culture, and sex, to name a few. In peda-gogy, there are fundamental differences between men-toring and supervision. One main difference is that supervision is task oriented and assumes a top-down approach, e.g., a PI supervising a trainee’s Ph.D. proj-ect. In contrast, mentoring involves a more neutral trainee-centered relationship using a predominantly facilitative approach. Such distinctions may not be discernible to trainees or PIs who are not familiar with the process of mentoring and use the term inter-changeably. This is not helped by the lack of a uni-versally accepted definition of mentoring(1) because there are different models of mentoring and a mul-titude of roles a mentor can play. Despite this, one hallmark feature of mentoring is that mentees freely choose their mentors. Trainees may choose a Ph.D. or research project by interest and the potential for success, but they do not have equal freedom to change their PIs or supervisors.Second, it is normal for trainees to choose men-tors outside their research group. Many mentoring programs in universities in the United Kingdom explicitly recommend that mentors should not have any hierarchical associations with potential men-tees,(2,3) e.g., supervisor and trainee. Likewise in the United States, postgraduate students in some uni-versities are advised to choose mentors according to best fit.(4,5) Nonetheless, providing formal training in mentoring to aspiring mentors and educating potential mentees about the process allows the cal-ibration and better management of expectations on both sides.Third, careful consideration is needed when associ-ating the terms trainees, mentees, employees, mentors, supervisor, and PIs with mentoring. It is noteworthy that through the lens of pedagogy and to education-alists, these terms have different implications. This is potentially problematic for this study because PIs were asked for their expectations of employees and not specifically trainees or mentees. The term employee also encompasses non-training members within a PI’s group (e.g., laboratory manager, laboratory technician). Similarly, trainees were asked for their expectations of their PI and supervisor and not specifically their mentors. The Likert-type questions also contained a degree of ambiguity and did not target perspectives specifically related to a mentor–mentee relationship. Therefore, it is important to know if the survey was pretested in similar but independent groups and if the validity and reliability were assessed prior to its use in the study.In summary, we commend the authors for their efforts in investigating the mentor–mentee relation-ship in academia through this pilot study, but future studies must address the issues discussed above for results to be robust and meaningful. This is undoubt-edly an important issue, and we fully support the ongoing trans-Atlantic efforts to further postgraduate education in hepatology.aDDRess CoRResponDenCe anD RepRint ReQuests to: John Ong, M.Sc., MBBSDepartment of Engineering, University of CambridgeTrumpington StreetCambridge CB2 1PZ, UKE-mail: jo401@cam.ac.ukTel.: +44 (0) 1223 332600ong anD sWiFt Hepatology CommuniCations, December 20181420Acknowledgment: Communications and access to liter-ature were supported by the University of Cambridge.John Ong, M.Sc., MBBS 1,2 Carla Swift, MBChB 2,31 Materials Engineering and Materials– Tissue Interactions Group, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge United Kingdom2 Health Education East of England (Deanery), Gastroenterology and Hepatology Specialist Training Programme, Cambridge  United Kingdom3 Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Bedford Hospital National Health Service Trust, Bedford, United KingdomReFeRenCes 1) Dawson P. Beyond a definition: toward a framework for  designing and specifying mentoring models. Educ Researcher 2014;43:137-145. 2) University College London. Mentoring. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/research/integrity/policies-and-guidelines/mentoring. Accessed September 2018. 3) Oxford Learning Institute, University of Oxford. Mentoring. https://www.learning.ox.ac.uk/coach-mentor/mentoring/. Accessed September 2018. 4) Stanford Biosciences, Stanford University. How to get the mento-ring you need. https://biosciences.stanford.edu/current-students/advising-and-mentoring/how-to-get-the-mentoring-you-need/. Accessed September 2018. 5) Rackham Graduate School, University of Michigan. How to get the mentoring you want: a guide for graduate students. https://www.rackham.umich.edu/downloads/publications/mentoring.pdf. Accessed September 2018.Supported in part by the University of Cambridge W. D. Armstrong Doctoral Fellowship (to J.O.)The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the University of Cambridge, the National Health Service, or the Department of Health.© 2018 The Authors. Hepatology Communications published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc., on behalf of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com.DOI 10.1002/hep4.1283Potential conflict of interest: Nothing to report.

Mentoring and Supervision in Academia: Establishing Distinctions to Manage Expectations.

Crossref

Mentoring and Supervision in Academia: Establishing Distinctions to Manage Expectations

https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstream/1810/303563/1/Mentoring%20and%20Supervision%20in%20Academia%20Establishing%20Distinctions%20to%20Manage%20Expectations.pdf

Mentoring and Supervision in Academia: Establishing Distinctions to Manage Expectations.

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Apollo (Cambridge)

Crossref