MENTOR study: Matching expectations and needs to optimize relationships in cardiovascular fellowship training

Abstract

Study objective: Mentorship is a key component of successful cardiology training. This study sought to understand the alignment of mentorship priorities for fellow-in-training (FIT) mentees and faculty mentors. Design: Cross-sectional survey study. Setting: Online. Participants: Cardiology mentors and FIT mentees in the State of Connecticut. Interventions: None. Main outcome measures: Likert-scale graded valuations on the importance of and satisfaction with various categories of mentorship by both mentors and mentees. Results were analyzed using Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests, where appropriate. Results: Forty-eight percent of FITs (n = 34) and 16% of faculty mentors (n = 34) responded to the survey. Of those, 74% of FITs identified a mentor within the first year of fellowship either by directly contacting the mentor or meeting them through a clinical rotation. Mentors significantly undervalued the importance to FITs of providing research opportunities (4.5 vs 3.6, p < 0.05), helping them make contacts (4.5 vs 3.7, p < 0.05) and providing job-search support (4.3 vs 3.3, p < 0.05). In contrast, mentors overestimated the value of work-life balance and clinical mentorship to FITs. Conclusions: FITs value support in research, job search support, and networking more than mentors realize, leading to an expectation-satisfaction gap in those areas of mentorship. Further studies to examine how mentors and mentees can best align their expectations may improve the efficacy of the mentorship process.

Keywords

• Mentorship
• Fellows-in-training