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The women in emergency medicine mentoring program: an innovative approach to mentoring.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Women in medicine report many gender-specific barriers to their career success and satisfaction, including a lack of mentors and role models. The literature calls for innovative strategies to enhance mentorship for women in medicine. OBJECTIVE: To describe the content, perceived value, and ongoing achievements of a mentoring program for women in emergency medicine. METHODS: The program offered mentoring for female faculty and residents in an academic emergency medicine department. Volunteers participated in group mentoring sessions using a mosaic of vertical and peer mentoring. Sessions focused on topics specific to women in medicine. An anonymous, electronic survey was sent to women who participated during 2004-2010 to assess the perceived value of the program and to collect qualitative feedback. Preliminary achievements fulfilling the program's goals were tracked. RESULTS: A total of 46 women (64%) completed the survey. The results showed a positive perceived value of the program (average, 4.65 on a 5-point Likert scale) in providing mentors and role models (4.41), in offering a supportive environment (4.39), in providing discussions pertinent to both personal (4.22) and professional development (4.22), while expanding networking opportunities (4.07). Notable achievements included work on the creation of a family leave policy, establishing lactation space, collaboration on projects, awards, and academic advancement. CONCLUSION: This innovative model for mentoring women is perceived as a valuable asset to the academic department and residency. It offers the unique combination of expanding a female mentor pool by recruiting alumni and using a mosaic of vertical and peer mentoring.

SUBMITTER: Welch JL

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3444192 | biostudies-other | 2012 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

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Project description:IntroductionLeadership and teaching skills are essential, but not often emphasized, components of medical training. As emergency care develops as a specialty in Uganda, two cadres of providers are being trained: physicians and non-physician clinicians (NPCs). Building formal leadership and educator training into these curricula is essential.MethodsA week long continuing education (CE) course on leadership and teaching is described and evaluated for effectiveness using Kirkpatrick's framework for learner-centred outcomes. The emergency care trained NPCs participated in a week-long course consisting of lectures, role-playing, and small group discussions, as well as a personality self-assessment. The evaluation process consisted of: 1) an immediate post-course survey to measure learner satisfaction, 2) a retrospective, pre/post self-assessment with a Likert-type scoring tool to measure knowledge gains, and 3) a three-month follow up survey and structured interviews to measure knowledge retention and behaviour change in practice.ResultsAll 15 NPCs participated in the evaluation process. Learner satisfaction was high with an average score of 9.3 (on a 1-10 scale) for course content, amount learned, and use of time. Participants reported gains in knowledge for each of the 24 competencies measured, with an average difference in pre- and post-course Likert scores of 1.11 (on a scale of 1-5). Lastly, all 15 participants shared detailed examples of using course content in practice three months after the course finished. The most frequently mentioned themes were "giving and receiving feedback," "delegating and assigning tasks," and "communication."ConclusionThis course was a successful CE intervention in this setting as measured by Kirkpatrick's framework. The most frequently mentioned concepts used in practice point to the NPCs ability to take on leadership roles in this setting. Further research and evaluation methods should focus on the influence of culture and personalities on leadership education and translation into practice in an EM setting.

Project description:BackgroundWomen comprise 28% of faculty in academic departments of emergency medicine (EM) and 11% of academic chairs. Professional development programs for women are key to career success and to prevent pipeline attrition. Within emergency medicine, there is a paucity of outcomes-level data for such programs.ObjectivesWe aim to measure the impact of a novel structured professional development curriculum and mentorship group (Resident and Faculty Female Tribe, or RAFFT) within an academic department of EM.MethodsThis prospective single-center curriculum implementation and evaluation was conducted in the academic year 2020-2021. A planning group identified potential curricular topics using an iterative Delphi process. We developed a 10-session longitudinal curriculum; a postcurriculum survey was conducted to assess the perceived benefit of the program in four domains.ResultsA total of 76% of 51 eligible women attended at least one session; for this project we analyzed the 24 participants (47%) who attended at least one session and completed both the pre- and the postsurvey. The majority of participants reported a positive benefit, which aligned with their expectations in the following areas: professional development (79.2%), job satisfaction (83.3%), professional well-being (70.8%), and personal well-being (79.2%). Resident physicians more often reported less benefit than expected compared to fellow/faculty physicians. Median perceived impact on career choice and trajectory was positive for all respondents.ConclusionsSuccess of this professional development program was measured through a perceived benefit aligning with participant expectations, a positive impact on career choice and career trajectory for participants in each career stage, and a high level of engagement in this voluntary program. Recommendations for the successful implementation of professional development programs include early engagement of stakeholders, the application of data from a program-specific needs assessment, early dissemination of session dates to allow for protected time off, and structured discussions with appropriate identification of presession resources.

Project description:BACKGROUND:Mentoring nurtures a mentee's personal and professional development. Yet conflation of mentoring approaches and a failure to contend with mentoring's nature makes it difficult to study mentoring processes and relationships. This study aims to understand of mentee experiences in the Palliative Medicine Initiative (PMI). The PMI uses a consistent mentoring approach amongst a homogeneous mentee population offers a unique opportunity to circumnavigate conflation of practices and the limitations posed by mentoring's nature. The data will advance understanding of mentoring processes. METHODS:Sixteen mentees discussed their PMI experiences in individual face-to-face audio-recorded interviews. The two themes identified from thematic analysis of interview transcripts were the stages of mentoring and communication. RESULTS:The 6 stages of mentoring are the 'pre-mentoring stage', 'initial research meetings', 'data gathering', 'review of initial findings, 'manuscript preparation" and 'reflections'. These subthemes sketch the progression of mentees from being dependent on the mentor for support and guidance, to an independent learner with capacity and willingness to mentor others. Each subtheme is described as stages in the mentoring process (mentoring stages) given their association with a specific phase of the research process. Mentoring processes also pivot on effective communication which are influenced by the mentor's characteristics and the nature of mentoring interactions. CONCLUSION:Mentoring relationships evolve in stages to ensure particular competencies are met before mentees progress to the next part of their mentoring process. Progress is dependent upon effective communication and support from the mentor and appropriate and timely adaptations to the mentoring approach to meet the mentee's needs and goals. Adaptations to the mentoring structure are informed by effective and holistic evaluation of the mentoring process and the mentor's and mentee's abilities, goals and situations. These findings underline the need to review and redesign the way assessments of the mentoring process are constructed and how mentoring programs are structured.

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The women in emergency medicine mentoring program: an innovative approach to mentoring.

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