How to Effectively Mentor Junior Faculty?

In the current era of decreased funding for teaching and research, academic centers are increasingly focused on clinical productivity. The lack of structured mentoring programs along with increasing clinical demands has led to unrealistic academic expectations for physician faculty. Faculty mentoring is a dynamic reciprocal relationship for both the mentor and mentee to work closely in developing a professional and productive academic partnership. Both mentor and mentee are equally important in achieving a rewarding mentoring partnership. There are fundamental guidelines for the mentor and the mentee to follow to ensure the desired outcomes. Traditional mentoring relationship is strictly voluntary without a defined commitment from either party. However, outcome-driven mentoring relationship is a structured process in which specific goals and objectives are well-defined, and in which the mentoring progresses and feedback are closely monitored. Much information about faculty mentoring is derived from the mentoring of basic scientists. In contrast, there is a paucity of well-designed studies on mentoring of physician faculty. The effectiveness of mentoring programs was traditionally measured by subjective feedback, unlike outcomesdriven mentoring which uses objective measures based on a priori defined outcomes. Although individual faculty members must assume responsibility for their own academic development, their institution is obligated to provide an effective mentoring program to aid the faculty in accomplishing their assignments and advancing in their career development.