PURPOSE Mentoring plays an important role in students' performance and career. The authors of this study assessed the need for mentoring among medical students and established a novel large-scale mentoring program at Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU) Munich School of Medicine. METHODS Needs assessment was conducted using a survey distributed to all students at the medical school (n=578 of 4...

© 2007 Association médicale canadienne R ecently, concern has been expressed that Canada’s current system for treating patients needing surgery is not sustainable in the long run. It has been suggested that the number of surgeons be increased or that nonphysician care providers be recruited to take on some responsibilities so that the efficiency with which the care is delivered can be improved....

Dental education in the United States and Canada is currently experiencing a crisis with respect to faculty recruitment and retention. The major reasons for the status of dental and specialty education are lower salaries and lack of interest. To make up for this deficit in the specialty of periodontology, our current educators need to utilize strategies targeted towards an existing potential te...

Although the word "mentor"has traditionally been used to describe a relationship between an older adult and a younger person, recent work has extended its usage to relationships with peers and groups rather than with individuals and uncoupled the instrumental and affective qualities of the role. This paper examines (a) the extent to which adolescents' relationships with significant others in di...

Purpose To develop a model of the optimal mentoring environment for medical residents. The authors propose that such an environment is a function of a relationship that rests upon a set of interactional foundations that allow a protégé to capitalize on the strengths of the mentor, and it facilitates behaviors that will enable the protégé to develop and internalize the requisite knowledge, skill...

Research into workplace mentoring is principally focussed on predictors and psychosocial and instrumental outcomes, while there is scarcely any in-depth research into relational characteristics, outcomes and processes. This article aims to illustrate these relational aspects. It reports a co-constructed auto-ethnography of a dyadic mentoring relationship as experienced by mentor and protégé. Th...

This opening article defines the ways in which three mentoring interaction elements--focus, purpose, and authorship--distinguish between effective and ineffective mentoring relationship styles. The framework described can help mentors better understand the difference between prescriptive and instrumental styles and differentiate laissez-faire from developmental mentoring. It also reveals unique...

The innovative nature of e-mentoring along with its ongoing adoption process provided the reasons for conducting an innovation–adoption study on e-mentoring. A sample of 234 mentors that have been employed by Ergani Center, a well respected Greek mentoring organization, were asked to identify with the use of an online questionnaire the factors that influence the adoption of e-mentoring. Gender,...

Individual differences shape the needs and characteristics of protégés, the processes through which mentoring may influence protégés’ developmental trajectories, and the social networks into which the mentors enter. The literature on the influences of gender, ethnicity, and age on mentoring is reviewed and discussed as examples of how mentoring programs may have different influences on, and out...

Despite the crucial role of mentoring, little literature exists that addresses distance mentoring among health researchers. This article provides three case studies showcasing protégés at different stages of career development (one in graduate school, one as an early-stage researcher, and one as an established researcher). Each case study provides a brief history of the relationship, examines t...