- Email: [email protected]
mentee pairing in surgical residency
j o u r n a l o f s u r g i c a l r e s e a r c h 1 5 j u n e 2 0 1 7 ( 2 1 4 ) 5 7 e6 1
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.JournalofSurgicalResearch.com
Association for Academic Surgery
Speed dating for mentors: a novel approach to mentor/mentee pairing in surgical residency Akia D. Caine, MD,a Jacob Schwartzman, MD,a and Anastasia Kunac, MD, FACSb,* a
Division of General Surgery, Department of Surgery, Rutgers-New Jersey Medical School, Newark, New Jersey Division of Trauma and Surgical Critical Care, Department of Surgery, Rutgers-New Jersey Medical School, Newark, New Jersey
b
article info
abstract
Article history:
Background: Resident-resident mentoring offers significant benefits. Previous works have
Received 2 December 2016
shown that the quality of the mentorship pairing is important, but techniques of pairing
Received in revised form
have seldom been described. We describe a system for mentor-mentee pairing that we call
25 January 2017
“Speed Dating for Mentors” (SDM).
Accepted 24 February 2017
Methods: The SDM activity took place in an academic general surgery residency program in
Available online 6 March 2017
the Northeast. Senior residents met with junior residents (JR) in 90-second intervals. On completion of interviews, residents documented their top three choicesdthis was used to
Keywords:
create senior-junior resident pairings. A cross-sectional Likert survey was conducted with
Mentoring
univariate analysis of satisfaction with the SDM event.
Residency
Results: Forty-two surgical residents participated in SDMd23 junior residents and 19 senior
Surgical education
residentsdresulting in 23 mentor-mentee pairings. Fourteen pairs were generated, where both mentor and mentee were among top three choices, seven pairings generated where either/or was a top three choice, and two pairings were assigned; six pairs were assigned for nonattendees. A total of 36 surveys were completedd28 (78%) respondents participated in SDM compared to eight (22%) who did not. Eighty-five percent of respondents who attended were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their pairing compared to only 12% of nonattendees (P ¼ 0.001). Conclusions: “Speed dating” is a novel approach to forming mentorship pairings and identifying mentors/mentees with similar interests. Residents who attended the event were satisfied with the event and with the outcome of their mentor/mentee pairing. Further investigations are warranted to determine what effects resident mentoring has on resident performance, stress levels, and well-being. ª 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
* Corresponding author. Department of Surgery, Rutgers-New Jersey Medical School, 150 Bergen Street, Mezzanine M-237A, Newark, NJ 07103. Tel.: þ973-972-1602; fax: þ973-972-7441. E-mail address: [email protected] (A. Kunac). 0022-4804/$ e see front matter ª 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2017.02.068
58
j o u r n a l o f s u r g i c a l r e s e a r c h 1 5 j u n e 2 0 1 7 ( 2 1 4 ) 5 7 e6 1
Introduction Mentoring in academia has been utilized as a method of providing individualized guidance. The subject of mentoring has been studied in various individual disciplines, thus leading to a lack of research in how to form substantial mentoring relationships and the characteristics of those pairings.1 Current data show that good mentoring relationships have positive effects on academic growth, promote self-learning and investigation, and provide protection from negative interactions. On a personal level, mentors provide mentees with an outlet for expression of feelings and a source of support. Good mentors are honest and adept at active listening, and good mentoring relationships are those that comprise of mutual respect, trust, and confidentiality.2 There is very little research in academic mentoring that involves the process of creating mentorship relationships and pairings. In the absence of a structured mentoring program, potential mentees have to find mentors and initiate relationships on their own; this can prove to be difficult. In programs where mentors are assigned rather than “self-identified,” there can be negative implicationsdparticipants may feel forced into a relationship that lacks any chemistry or common ground. Self-identification of mentors, on the other hand, is seen as a more beneficial method of creating a mentormentee pairing, as it allows for a more comfortable and natural relationship to form.2 In academic medicine programs that do not allow mentees to choose their own mentor, both mentees and mentors believe that being able to choose would be important in forming an ideal pair.3 Accommodating for the multiple characteristics and experiences of a mentee is difficult but can be accomplished with multiple mentors.2 Having resident mentors can very much supplement the mentoring done at the attending level. Senior resident mentors aid in personal and professional growth of junior residents (JR) by being able to intimately understand the junior resident perspective because they recently had those same experiences. Knowing that selfidentified pairings can be especially beneficial, we devised a simple technique for pairing junior resident mentees with senior resident mentors. This method is based on the mainstream concept of “speed dating,” which has been traditionally used to allow participants to sample many people in a reasonable amount of time for the purpose of forming personal relationships. Herein, we describe our method and experience with “speed dating for mentors” and hypothesize that this is a useful technique for pairing junior resident mentees with senior resident mentors in a surgical residency program.
place in a lecture hall used for didactics during educational protected time, where residents are free from clinical duties. Residents were given an introduction to the purpose of the event and format as well as instructions. Senior residents were asked to move consecutively in 90-second intervals from one seated junior resident to the next. During the 90 s, the residents were to converse and become acquainted with one another such that all JR new to the program met with every single senior resident in attendance. On completion of all interviews, both junior and senior residents were given a worksheet to list their first, second, and third choices of mentor or mentee, respectively, and a rationale for why they wanted to be paired with that resident. The associate program director used the worksheets to create mentor pairings based on the residents’ preferences. Mentorship pairings were announced via email. A cross-sectional written survey with Likert-type responses was then conducted at an educational session during resident protected time 4 wk after the SDM event. Survey completion was completely voluntary. The survey collected demographic data on whether the respondent was present at the SDM event and their postgraduate year. Survey questions asked about satisfaction with the SDM event, satisfaction with their mentorship pairing, and satisfaction with previous mentor pairing (which were assigned and did not utilize the SDM technique). Additional questions focused on the importance of various characteristics of a mentor/mentee such as race/ethnicity, gender, PGY level, and interests. Descriptive statistics are presented as counts with proportions for all outcome variables. Univariate analysis comparing attendees with nonattendees in terms of mentor pairing satisfaction rates was performed using exact chisquared tests to compare groups. Within attendees, previous and current mentor pairing satisfaction rates were dichotomized into a binary outcome, with “very unsatisfied,” “unsatisfied,” and “neutral” being considered an unsatisfactory pairing and with “satisfied” and “very satisfied” being considered a satisfactory pairing. The proportion of attendees with previously satisfactory mentor pairings was compared to the proportion with currently satisfactory mentor pairings using Fisher’s Exact test. Due to the low number of nonattendees, previous and current satisfaction rates were not compared within this group, and more sophisticated analysis comparing selected versus chosen mentorship was not possible. For all comparisons, a P value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. SAS, version 9.4, was used for all statistical analysis.
Results Methods The “speed dating for mentors” (SDM) activity took place in an academic general surgery residency program in the Northeast consisting of 29 postgraduate year (PGY) 1-2 JR and 28 PGY 3-5þ senior residents. The residents rotate at four hospitals, some at remote locations. Thus, not every resident in the program attended the event. The event took
A total of 42 surgical residents participated in SDMd23 JR and 19 senior residents; 73% (42/57) of the total residency class. Figure 1 describes the distribution of the study participants within the study design. Twenty-three pairings were created from the worksheets completed by residents who attended the event. Fourteen pairs were generated where both mentor and mentee were among top three choices, seven pairings generated where either the mentor or mentee was a top three
caine et al speed dating for mentors in surgical residency
Fig. 1 e Speed dating for mentors study design. (Color version of figure is available online.)
59
Of the 23 residents who previously had assigned mentors, only seven residents (30%) were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their previous mentor. Of note, four residents did not know who their previous mentor was. Furthermore, attendees were significantly more likely to be “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their current mentor pairing compared to their previous mentor pairing, with an odds ratio of 8.56 (Fisher’s Exact P ¼ 0.007). Table summarizes the characteristics that residents believed to be important in the mentor-mentee pairing process. As reflected in the written worksheets after the SDM event, future career interests/goals were “important” or “extremely important” to 83% of respondents. Only 18% of respondents were dissatisfied with the amount of decisionmaking time allowed. Race/ethnicity and gender were found to be unimportant to a majority of participants. Most (86%) respondents thought having protected time for mentoring was important.
Discussion choice, and 2 pairings from the SDM session were assigned. These two pairings were assigned by the associate program director because their choices were already designated for another pairing. An additional six mentor-mentee pairings were assigned for residents that did not attend the event because they were rotating at remote institutions. The rationale listed for choices on the worksheets was also examineddthe most common cited being “similar interests.” Thirty-six residents, 63% (36/57) of entire residency class, responded to the survey. Twenty-eight respondents (78%) participated in SDM compared to eight (22%) who did not. Of attendees, 82% (23/28) were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with the speed-dating event. For the outcome of their mentorship pairing, attendees were significantly more likely to be “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their resulting mentorship pairing compared to nonattendees (85% versus 12% respectively, Exact chi-squared test P ¼ 0.0012), as illustrated in Figure 2. Sixty-two percent of nonattendees were “neutral,” “dissatisfied”, or “extremely dissatisfied” with their pairing and two nonattendees declined to answer.
Fig. 2 e Mentorship pairing satisfaction. (Color version of figure is available online.)
We have utilized the concept of speed dating for pairing senior surgical residents with JR for the purpose of mentoring. The exercise was shown to be well received and enjoyed by participants. An ancillary benefit of the SDM event beyond creating mentor-mentee pairs was that it immersed and introduced the new residents to almost the entire existing residency. Most important, we were able to show that the SDM event was successful in its intended purpose, which was to create desirable mentorship pairings for both mentor and mentee. Event participants were much more satisfied with their mentorship pairing than those who did not attend. We examined which characteristics were important to residents in choosing a mentor. The most important characteristic was found to be similar interests. This was reflected in both the SDM worksheets and in the survey. We also found that demographics such as race, ethnicity, and gender were not important to residents in terms of mentor/mentee relationships. Our results are reflected in the current literature, although literature focused on resident mentoring appears to be lacking. A 2009 systematic review of mentoring in academic medicine highlighted the role of a mentor’s personality and interpersonal abilities.2 Our Speed Dating for Mentors event allows the participants themselves to sample each candidate’s personality to make a truly informed decision. The literature also supports our finding that having similar interests are important to both mentor and mentee.4 Previous works have elucidated what can go wrong in mentoring. Mentee related problems include the inability of the mentee to face their inadequacies and make changes. In addition, mentees that do not take initiative in their mentoring relationships are at a clear disadvantage. Mentees should be taking control of the relationship and setting their own goals for what they want to get out of their pairing.2 We postulate that with self-selection of mentors, mentees will be more likely to initiate the mentoring relationship and set goals. As for the mentor, a lack of skills in mentoring, taking
60
j o u r n a l o f s u r g i c a l r e s e a r c h 1 5 j u n e 2 0 1 7 ( 2 1 4 ) 5 7 e6 1
Table e Characteristics deemed by residents to be important in the mentor-mentee match. Characteristic
Very unimportant
Unimportant
Neutral
Important
Very important
PGY level
2 (6%)
6 (17%)
10 (28%)
13 (36%)
5 (14%)
Career interests
0 (0%)
1 (3%)
5 (14%)
22 (61%)
8 (22%)
Gender
10 (28%)
17 (47%)
6 (17%)
2 (6%)
1 (3%)
Race
13 (36%)
15 (42%)
4 (11%)
2 (6%)
2 (6%)
0 (0%)
1 (3%)
4 (11%)
22 (61%)
9 (25%)
Protected time for mentoring
an authoritarian role, and expectations that a mentee follow the path of their mentor can have negative results. Utilizing the SDM technique for mentorship assignments may not mitigate these factors. There are also structural factors that can negatively influence a mentoring relationship. Lack of time, energy, continuity, and a lack of incentive are seen as obstacles.2 Our study shows that residents prefer to have protected time for mentoring. In a pilot program of faculty mentoring, participants believed that the lack of protected time for mentoring was “detrimental” to the program’s success.5 Protected time may allow for mentor development activities to address some of the issues above. Although novel in its application in surgical residency, speed dating has been utilized before in academic medicine. Cook et al. utilized the technique with seven junior and six senior medicine faculties. Their event was also well received but as the pairing of faculty members was not facilitated, only two mentees contacted mentors they had inteacted with during the event.6 We believe that our SDM event’s combination of resident autonomy with residency program facilitation was the key to creating meaningful mentorship pairings. Guse et al. used a similar format for pairing medical students with faculty mentors in Germany. Through survey and focus group work, they found that participants similarly found the event to be great for determining if a personal connection was present.7 Speed dating for mentors can easily be used in many different settings: for pairing medical students with resident mentors, pairing residents with attending advisors, or even for mentoring outside of the field of academic medicine. Our study is limited by its sample size with 36 total survey responses, which was only 63% of the entire residency. This sample may not be a complete representation of the residency as the entire class did not participate in the SDM event nor did every participant in the SDM event complete a survey. Our survey was conducted 1 mo after the SDM event, and this may not have been enough time for respondents to accurately judge the outcome of their mentorship pairing. Four of the survey respondents who had assigned resident mentors in the past could not recall who their previous mentor was. This suggests that mentoring was not robust in the past. We hope this will change following implementation of SDM. Further research would include a follow-up survey to assess the outcomes of these mentorship pairings over the course of the academic year and to follow. We will also make a greater effort to include all residents in the SDM event by requiring residents at remote training sites be present.
Conclusion Guidance and support during the complex transition from medical school to residency is extremely important. Residentresident mentoring not only serves that purpose but it also lends itself to increasing camaraderie and sense of “family.” Given the demonstrated success of the Speed Dating for Mentors event, we strongly feel that other residency programs should consider adopting such a practice for their own residents.
Acknowledgment The authors would like to recognize Dr. David Livingston and the Department of Surgery at Rutgers-New Jersey Medical School in Newark, NJ for their support in conducting this project. Authors’ contributions: A.K. developed and implemented the “speed dating” event. A.D.C. is responsible for survey design and data collection. J.S. is responsible for statistical analysis. A.D.C. prepared the manuscript with contributions from A.K. and J.S.
Disclosure The authors report no proprietary or commercial interest in any concept discussed in this article.
Supplementary data Supplementary data related to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2017.02.068.
references
1. Eby LT, Allen TD, Evans SC, Ng T, Dubois DL. Does mentoring matter? A multidisciplinary meta-analysis comparing mentored and non-mentored individuals. J Vocat Behav. 2008;72:254e267. 2. Sambunjak D, Straus SE, Marusic A. A systematic review of qualitative research on the meaning and characteristics of mentoring in academic medicine. J Gen Intern Med. 2009;25:72e78.
caine et al speed dating for mentors in surgical residency
3. Kashiwagi DT, Varkey P, Cook DA. Mentoring programs for physicians in academic medicine. Acad Med. 2013;88:1029e1037. 4. Jackson VA, Palepu A, Szalacha L, Caswell C, Carr PL, Inui T. Having the right chemistry. Acad Med. 2003;78:328e334. 5. Tracy EE, Jagsi R, Starr R, Tarbell NJ. Outcomes of a pilot faculty mentoring program. Am J Obstet Gynecol. 2004;191:1846e1850.
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6. Cook DA, Bahn RS, Menaker R. Speed mentoring: an innovative method to facilitate mentoring relationships. Med Teach. 2010;32:692e694. 7. Guse J, Schweigert E, Kulms G, Heinen I, Martens C, Guse AH. Effects of mentoring speed dating as an innovative matching tool in undergraduate medical education: a mixed methods study. PLOS One. 2016;11(2):e0147444.
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.JournalofSurgicalResearch.com
Association for Academic Surgery
Speed dating for mentors: a novel approach to mentor/mentee pairing in surgical residency Akia D. Caine, MD,a Jacob Schwartzman, MD,a and Anastasia Kunac, MD, FACSb,* a
Division of General Surgery, Department of Surgery, Rutgers-New Jersey Medical School, Newark, New Jersey Division of Trauma and Surgical Critical Care, Department of Surgery, Rutgers-New Jersey Medical School, Newark, New Jersey
b
article info
abstract
Article history:
Background: Resident-resident mentoring offers significant benefits. Previous works have
Received 2 December 2016
shown that the quality of the mentorship pairing is important, but techniques of pairing
Received in revised form
have seldom been described. We describe a system for mentor-mentee pairing that we call
25 January 2017
“Speed Dating for Mentors” (SDM).
Accepted 24 February 2017
Methods: The SDM activity took place in an academic general surgery residency program in
Available online 6 March 2017
the Northeast. Senior residents met with junior residents (JR) in 90-second intervals. On completion of interviews, residents documented their top three choicesdthis was used to
Keywords:
create senior-junior resident pairings. A cross-sectional Likert survey was conducted with
Mentoring
univariate analysis of satisfaction with the SDM event.
Residency
Results: Forty-two surgical residents participated in SDMd23 junior residents and 19 senior
Surgical education
residentsdresulting in 23 mentor-mentee pairings. Fourteen pairs were generated, where both mentor and mentee were among top three choices, seven pairings generated where either/or was a top three choice, and two pairings were assigned; six pairs were assigned for nonattendees. A total of 36 surveys were completedd28 (78%) respondents participated in SDM compared to eight (22%) who did not. Eighty-five percent of respondents who attended were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their pairing compared to only 12% of nonattendees (P ¼ 0.001). Conclusions: “Speed dating” is a novel approach to forming mentorship pairings and identifying mentors/mentees with similar interests. Residents who attended the event were satisfied with the event and with the outcome of their mentor/mentee pairing. Further investigations are warranted to determine what effects resident mentoring has on resident performance, stress levels, and well-being. ª 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
* Corresponding author. Department of Surgery, Rutgers-New Jersey Medical School, 150 Bergen Street, Mezzanine M-237A, Newark, NJ 07103. Tel.: þ973-972-1602; fax: þ973-972-7441. E-mail address: [email protected] (A. Kunac). 0022-4804/$ e see front matter ª 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2017.02.068
58
j o u r n a l o f s u r g i c a l r e s e a r c h 1 5 j u n e 2 0 1 7 ( 2 1 4 ) 5 7 e6 1
Introduction Mentoring in academia has been utilized as a method of providing individualized guidance. The subject of mentoring has been studied in various individual disciplines, thus leading to a lack of research in how to form substantial mentoring relationships and the characteristics of those pairings.1 Current data show that good mentoring relationships have positive effects on academic growth, promote self-learning and investigation, and provide protection from negative interactions. On a personal level, mentors provide mentees with an outlet for expression of feelings and a source of support. Good mentors are honest and adept at active listening, and good mentoring relationships are those that comprise of mutual respect, trust, and confidentiality.2 There is very little research in academic mentoring that involves the process of creating mentorship relationships and pairings. In the absence of a structured mentoring program, potential mentees have to find mentors and initiate relationships on their own; this can prove to be difficult. In programs where mentors are assigned rather than “self-identified,” there can be negative implicationsdparticipants may feel forced into a relationship that lacks any chemistry or common ground. Self-identification of mentors, on the other hand, is seen as a more beneficial method of creating a mentormentee pairing, as it allows for a more comfortable and natural relationship to form.2 In academic medicine programs that do not allow mentees to choose their own mentor, both mentees and mentors believe that being able to choose would be important in forming an ideal pair.3 Accommodating for the multiple characteristics and experiences of a mentee is difficult but can be accomplished with multiple mentors.2 Having resident mentors can very much supplement the mentoring done at the attending level. Senior resident mentors aid in personal and professional growth of junior residents (JR) by being able to intimately understand the junior resident perspective because they recently had those same experiences. Knowing that selfidentified pairings can be especially beneficial, we devised a simple technique for pairing junior resident mentees with senior resident mentors. This method is based on the mainstream concept of “speed dating,” which has been traditionally used to allow participants to sample many people in a reasonable amount of time for the purpose of forming personal relationships. Herein, we describe our method and experience with “speed dating for mentors” and hypothesize that this is a useful technique for pairing junior resident mentees with senior resident mentors in a surgical residency program.
place in a lecture hall used for didactics during educational protected time, where residents are free from clinical duties. Residents were given an introduction to the purpose of the event and format as well as instructions. Senior residents were asked to move consecutively in 90-second intervals from one seated junior resident to the next. During the 90 s, the residents were to converse and become acquainted with one another such that all JR new to the program met with every single senior resident in attendance. On completion of all interviews, both junior and senior residents were given a worksheet to list their first, second, and third choices of mentor or mentee, respectively, and a rationale for why they wanted to be paired with that resident. The associate program director used the worksheets to create mentor pairings based on the residents’ preferences. Mentorship pairings were announced via email. A cross-sectional written survey with Likert-type responses was then conducted at an educational session during resident protected time 4 wk after the SDM event. Survey completion was completely voluntary. The survey collected demographic data on whether the respondent was present at the SDM event and their postgraduate year. Survey questions asked about satisfaction with the SDM event, satisfaction with their mentorship pairing, and satisfaction with previous mentor pairing (which were assigned and did not utilize the SDM technique). Additional questions focused on the importance of various characteristics of a mentor/mentee such as race/ethnicity, gender, PGY level, and interests. Descriptive statistics are presented as counts with proportions for all outcome variables. Univariate analysis comparing attendees with nonattendees in terms of mentor pairing satisfaction rates was performed using exact chisquared tests to compare groups. Within attendees, previous and current mentor pairing satisfaction rates were dichotomized into a binary outcome, with “very unsatisfied,” “unsatisfied,” and “neutral” being considered an unsatisfactory pairing and with “satisfied” and “very satisfied” being considered a satisfactory pairing. The proportion of attendees with previously satisfactory mentor pairings was compared to the proportion with currently satisfactory mentor pairings using Fisher’s Exact test. Due to the low number of nonattendees, previous and current satisfaction rates were not compared within this group, and more sophisticated analysis comparing selected versus chosen mentorship was not possible. For all comparisons, a P value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. SAS, version 9.4, was used for all statistical analysis.
Results Methods The “speed dating for mentors” (SDM) activity took place in an academic general surgery residency program in the Northeast consisting of 29 postgraduate year (PGY) 1-2 JR and 28 PGY 3-5þ senior residents. The residents rotate at four hospitals, some at remote locations. Thus, not every resident in the program attended the event. The event took
A total of 42 surgical residents participated in SDMd23 JR and 19 senior residents; 73% (42/57) of the total residency class. Figure 1 describes the distribution of the study participants within the study design. Twenty-three pairings were created from the worksheets completed by residents who attended the event. Fourteen pairs were generated where both mentor and mentee were among top three choices, seven pairings generated where either the mentor or mentee was a top three
caine et al speed dating for mentors in surgical residency
Fig. 1 e Speed dating for mentors study design. (Color version of figure is available online.)
59
Of the 23 residents who previously had assigned mentors, only seven residents (30%) were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their previous mentor. Of note, four residents did not know who their previous mentor was. Furthermore, attendees were significantly more likely to be “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their current mentor pairing compared to their previous mentor pairing, with an odds ratio of 8.56 (Fisher’s Exact P ¼ 0.007). Table summarizes the characteristics that residents believed to be important in the mentor-mentee pairing process. As reflected in the written worksheets after the SDM event, future career interests/goals were “important” or “extremely important” to 83% of respondents. Only 18% of respondents were dissatisfied with the amount of decisionmaking time allowed. Race/ethnicity and gender were found to be unimportant to a majority of participants. Most (86%) respondents thought having protected time for mentoring was important.
Discussion choice, and 2 pairings from the SDM session were assigned. These two pairings were assigned by the associate program director because their choices were already designated for another pairing. An additional six mentor-mentee pairings were assigned for residents that did not attend the event because they were rotating at remote institutions. The rationale listed for choices on the worksheets was also examineddthe most common cited being “similar interests.” Thirty-six residents, 63% (36/57) of entire residency class, responded to the survey. Twenty-eight respondents (78%) participated in SDM compared to eight (22%) who did not. Of attendees, 82% (23/28) were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with the speed-dating event. For the outcome of their mentorship pairing, attendees were significantly more likely to be “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their resulting mentorship pairing compared to nonattendees (85% versus 12% respectively, Exact chi-squared test P ¼ 0.0012), as illustrated in Figure 2. Sixty-two percent of nonattendees were “neutral,” “dissatisfied”, or “extremely dissatisfied” with their pairing and two nonattendees declined to answer.
Fig. 2 e Mentorship pairing satisfaction. (Color version of figure is available online.)
We have utilized the concept of speed dating for pairing senior surgical residents with JR for the purpose of mentoring. The exercise was shown to be well received and enjoyed by participants. An ancillary benefit of the SDM event beyond creating mentor-mentee pairs was that it immersed and introduced the new residents to almost the entire existing residency. Most important, we were able to show that the SDM event was successful in its intended purpose, which was to create desirable mentorship pairings for both mentor and mentee. Event participants were much more satisfied with their mentorship pairing than those who did not attend. We examined which characteristics were important to residents in choosing a mentor. The most important characteristic was found to be similar interests. This was reflected in both the SDM worksheets and in the survey. We also found that demographics such as race, ethnicity, and gender were not important to residents in terms of mentor/mentee relationships. Our results are reflected in the current literature, although literature focused on resident mentoring appears to be lacking. A 2009 systematic review of mentoring in academic medicine highlighted the role of a mentor’s personality and interpersonal abilities.2 Our Speed Dating for Mentors event allows the participants themselves to sample each candidate’s personality to make a truly informed decision. The literature also supports our finding that having similar interests are important to both mentor and mentee.4 Previous works have elucidated what can go wrong in mentoring. Mentee related problems include the inability of the mentee to face their inadequacies and make changes. In addition, mentees that do not take initiative in their mentoring relationships are at a clear disadvantage. Mentees should be taking control of the relationship and setting their own goals for what they want to get out of their pairing.2 We postulate that with self-selection of mentors, mentees will be more likely to initiate the mentoring relationship and set goals. As for the mentor, a lack of skills in mentoring, taking
60
j o u r n a l o f s u r g i c a l r e s e a r c h 1 5 j u n e 2 0 1 7 ( 2 1 4 ) 5 7 e6 1
Table e Characteristics deemed by residents to be important in the mentor-mentee match. Characteristic
Very unimportant
Unimportant
Neutral
Important
Very important
PGY level
2 (6%)
6 (17%)
10 (28%)
13 (36%)
5 (14%)
Career interests
0 (0%)
1 (3%)
5 (14%)
22 (61%)
8 (22%)
Gender
10 (28%)
17 (47%)
6 (17%)
2 (6%)
1 (3%)
Race
13 (36%)
15 (42%)
4 (11%)
2 (6%)
2 (6%)
0 (0%)
1 (3%)
4 (11%)
22 (61%)
9 (25%)
Protected time for mentoring
an authoritarian role, and expectations that a mentee follow the path of their mentor can have negative results. Utilizing the SDM technique for mentorship assignments may not mitigate these factors. There are also structural factors that can negatively influence a mentoring relationship. Lack of time, energy, continuity, and a lack of incentive are seen as obstacles.2 Our study shows that residents prefer to have protected time for mentoring. In a pilot program of faculty mentoring, participants believed that the lack of protected time for mentoring was “detrimental” to the program’s success.5 Protected time may allow for mentor development activities to address some of the issues above. Although novel in its application in surgical residency, speed dating has been utilized before in academic medicine. Cook et al. utilized the technique with seven junior and six senior medicine faculties. Their event was also well received but as the pairing of faculty members was not facilitated, only two mentees contacted mentors they had inteacted with during the event.6 We believe that our SDM event’s combination of resident autonomy with residency program facilitation was the key to creating meaningful mentorship pairings. Guse et al. used a similar format for pairing medical students with faculty mentors in Germany. Through survey and focus group work, they found that participants similarly found the event to be great for determining if a personal connection was present.7 Speed dating for mentors can easily be used in many different settings: for pairing medical students with resident mentors, pairing residents with attending advisors, or even for mentoring outside of the field of academic medicine. Our study is limited by its sample size with 36 total survey responses, which was only 63% of the entire residency. This sample may not be a complete representation of the residency as the entire class did not participate in the SDM event nor did every participant in the SDM event complete a survey. Our survey was conducted 1 mo after the SDM event, and this may not have been enough time for respondents to accurately judge the outcome of their mentorship pairing. Four of the survey respondents who had assigned resident mentors in the past could not recall who their previous mentor was. This suggests that mentoring was not robust in the past. We hope this will change following implementation of SDM. Further research would include a follow-up survey to assess the outcomes of these mentorship pairings over the course of the academic year and to follow. We will also make a greater effort to include all residents in the SDM event by requiring residents at remote training sites be present.
Conclusion Guidance and support during the complex transition from medical school to residency is extremely important. Residentresident mentoring not only serves that purpose but it also lends itself to increasing camaraderie and sense of “family.” Given the demonstrated success of the Speed Dating for Mentors event, we strongly feel that other residency programs should consider adopting such a practice for their own residents.
Acknowledgment The authors would like to recognize Dr. David Livingston and the Department of Surgery at Rutgers-New Jersey Medical School in Newark, NJ for their support in conducting this project. Authors’ contributions: A.K. developed and implemented the “speed dating” event. A.D.C. is responsible for survey design and data collection. J.S. is responsible for statistical analysis. A.D.C. prepared the manuscript with contributions from A.K. and J.S.
Disclosure The authors report no proprietary or commercial interest in any concept discussed in this article.
Supplementary data Supplementary data related to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2017.02.068.
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