T he word mentor originates from Homer’s famous poem, The Odyssey. Mentor was an extremely wise man who supported and guided Telemachus on the search for his father, Odysseus. In Greek, mentor literally means “to endure”—to last through the ages.1 In modern English, it is “a trusted counselor or guide.”2 The meaning is tremendously poignant, as anyone epitomizing this definition immeasurably an...

For trainees entering clinical practice, mentorship can be most helpful, and for those with an academic interest, mentorship is vital. A mentor can be a personal teacher, utor, advisor, and coach. In addition to those pursuing cademic advancement, similar issues also affect physicians ntering a practice setting who are seeking comprehensive entoring from their senior colleagues. The clinical tr...

The transition from residency to independent practice presents unique challenges for physicians. New attending physicians often have unmet learning needs in non-clinical domains. An attending physician is an independent medical practitioner, sometimes referred to as a staff physician or consultant. Peer mentorship has been explored as an alternative to traditional mentorship to meet the learnin...

Why mentorship? Regardless of one’s focus in science, instilled intellectual honesty and rigour are the fruits of proper mentoring. The importance of intellectual rigour through one’s period of training – by example – cannot be overstated. Proper mentoring includes not only the ethically correct application of learned skills, but, at least as importantly, collegiality through respectful and hon...

PURPOSE To explore the mentor-mentee relationship with a focus on determining the characteristics of effective mentors and mentees and understanding the factors influencing successful and failed mentoring relationships. METHOD The authors completed a qualitative study through the Departments of Medicine at the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine and the University of California, San Fra...

Background: Mentorship develops a personal relationship in which a more experienced and knowledgeable person helps a less experienced person. In this study we aimed to investigate mentorship status and its impact from viewpoint of clinical professors of Shiraz medical school. Methods: In this cross-sectional study 99 clinical professors of medicine at Shiraz medical school were investigated usi...