Mentorship Provides Residents with Vital Career Insight, Guidance and Preparation

UH Research & Education Update | December 2024

Mentorship is an increasingly essential part of medical training, especially as physicians embark on their residencies and careers. It cultivates personal and professional development, highlights opportunities, augments research and medical training, and instills the knowledge, skills, and goal-setting residents need to pursue their desired career trajectories.

“The process of medical school is to make you a physician, to give you the skills you need to be a physician,” says Leslie M. Dingeldein, MD, a pediatrician in Emergency Medicine at University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children’s and Associate Director of the Pediatric Residency Program.  “The importance of residency is to build your skills in a specific specialty. So, having mentors and advisors who have already gone through that process, who’ve already worked the hours residents are going to work, and who have learned the skills trainees will learn is valuable.”

So much of medicine is learned beyond books and classrooms, magnifying the importance of residents developing relationships with a group of mentors of diverse expertise.

“Mentorship is a must whether it’s required or encouraged,” says Christopher Geiger, DO, Associate Program Director of the Adult Neurology program at University Hospitals. “It more strongly positions you for future opportunities, whether they involve education or advanced training.”

Models May Vary, but Benefits are the Same

At University Hospitals, mentorship is promoted throughout departments and residency programs to catalyze career development and encourage the development of insightful and supportive relationships between residents and mentors. How this unfolds varies by department, but the importance and benefits of establishing these relationships are notable. Mentorship can reduce resident burnout, increase residency satisfaction, help with recruitment and retention, improve performance and engagement, and promote greater collaboration among trainees and more established physicians.

For instance, in neurology, new residents are assigned a senior faculty mentor specializing in an area outside the trainee’s specified career interest. Dr. Geiger says the trainees are mismatched intentionally to encourage open communication. Mismatching residents increases the likelihood of sharing the good and the bad in their experience, including their struggles and challenges, with someone not directly tied to their specific clinical and professional interests. Neurology residents also self-select professional or “aspirational” mentors who lend insight and guidance around their intended career paths and who can vouch for a resident’s skills in fellowship and job recommendation letters.

In the Department of Anesthesiology residents are assigned to “mentor pods” on Match Day. The pods are comprised of one member from each of the four residency classes in the program plus an attending physician who leads the group. Residents receive a questionnaire that prompts them to consider personal, professional, and academic goals. They can contact attending physicians with specific questions or more senior residents for advice. They are also encouraged to pursue mentors in clinical areas of interest. The department’s informal mentorship approach is conducive to holding conversations around tough topics, like failure, and how to deal with it comfortably, says Mata Helou, MD, anesthesiologist and critical care physician at University Hospitals, and Program Director for the Anesthesiology Residency Program. For those struggling, one-on-one mentorship with program directors, attending physicians, and other faculty helps residents weather challenges.

For its part, the pediatric residency’s “Flight” system cultivates peer mentorship to help pediatric residents “take off” in their medical careers. In this system, first-, second-, and third-year pediatric residents are organized into three multi-year groups, or flights, of 25-26 residents each, including internal medicine-pediatric trainees. Flight members complete ambulatory clinic rotations together, an approach intended to organically build community, camaraderie, and peer mentorship.

The “Flights” allow trainees to socialize, meet, and discuss topics of interest with their peers, such as what electives best correlate with specific career goals and how to juggle work-life balance issues via a small group within the larger departmental structure. Additional faculty mentorship develops organically or spontaneously, driven by projects, resident-specific areas of interest, and connections made during rotations.

Mentorship provides a Strong Foundation for Long-term Success

Taylor McDaniel, MD, Chief Resident in pediatrics, completed her residency training and now supervises and educates others. The peer mentorship she received in her flight group was critical in her growth as a physician year to year, especially during her intern year.

“There is such drastic growth that occurs during that year that having supportive senior residents, teachers, and mentors can make or break how your year goes and how much you can learn and grow,” she says. As a mentee, Dr. McDaniel received vital support and guidance from one of her mentors to complete a six-month research project on parent satisfaction in the pediatric ICU. The experience ultimately led her to shift her career focus from pediatric intensive care to primary care, decision-making process was invaluable and motivated her to seek other research opportunities. 

Indeed, mentorship helps residents fill in the blanks between medical school, residency and career development. “There’s a huge amount residents need to know to succeed in their future careers that are not explicitly taught across the board in medical school or residency, and that might vary depending on the career,” says Nathan Stehouwer, MD, Program Director of the Internal Medicine-Pediatrics Residency Program at UH Rainbow & Babies Children’s Hospital. For example, a resident interested in academics and research needs to learn to be a physician-scientist and develop skills in running a lab and grant management. Similarly, a resident who aims to run their own practice needs to learn general skills around medical billing, coding, and business management.

Accelerating Career Growth and Professional Connections

Undoubtedly, mentorship accelerates career growth, fosters helpful connections, assists residents with self-discovery, and refines interests and career goals. It is especially beneficial for individuals who may not have prior connections or are underrepresented within the health systems, including women and other minorities.

 “Mentorship is incredibly important to help the pipeline of specialists and subspecialists, particularly in areas experiencing physician shortages,” says Ross Myers, MD, a pediatric pulmonologist at UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital. He helped Dr. McDaniel construct a needs assessment to evaluate resident comfort level and knowledge around discipline and behavior modification during well child exams, which helped refine her career goals.

Mentorship does require time and effort, but it is vital in developing short—and long-term career goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely. As Dr. Myers sees it, “Everybody has a different path, you need people to help and guide you on whatever your individual path is."