Mentoring Matters

Justine Strand, MPH, PA-C
President Elect

Recruitment and retention of faculty are perennial challenges for PA education, with special concern about the cadre of individuals ready to serve in our highest echelons. Some thought leaders among PA educators assert that individuals qualified to serve as PA program directors simply can’t be found. What can be done to increase the pool of talented individuals with the skills and knowledge to serve in leadership roles? While PAEA does have plans to foster mentoring within the framework of Association activities, mentoring colleagues in our own programs may also be part of the answer. I’ll present briefly some mentoring models that we may find applicable to our needs within the PA profession.

The problem of workforce development is not unique to PA, or even health professional, education. DeLong, Gabarro, and Lees studied professional service organizations such as law firms, investment banks, and hospitals and found that turnover and a shortage of skilled young leaders were due to a failure of mentoring, a result of rapid growth, and changing business conditions. Because mentoring is not a priority, they argue, these professional service firms have “lost the art of making talent.”

The traditional view of mentoring, as articulated by Nickle in Dynamics, is that “an experienced person acts as a role model, coach, and teacher to counsel a more junior person for the purpose of encouraging personal and professional growth.” The newer, multiple-mentoring model, described, for example, by Meyer et al, encourages the mentee to “construct a mentoring community” by finding a number of more senior guides to assist in various aspects of professional development and creating a “personal advisory board.” A third model, peer mentoring, also called reciprocal or co-mentoring, calls on individuals in similar stages of development to support each other, a model well suited to PAs because of our emphasis on teamwork.

A good mentor inspires, supports, and invests in the development of the mentee, as Bhagia and Tinsley describe in The Mentoring Partnership. The relationship is characterized by warmth and includes purely social interaction, which distinguishes it from the preceptorship model. Mentors provide moral support, encouragement, constructive criticism, information about organizational and professional roles, and coaching about invisible political landmines. Good mentors help mentees develop “stretch” goals to see themselves in roles they might not have envisioned. Mentees told DeLong, Gabarro, and Lees that the best mentors are credible, have high integrity, instill the security to take risks, confidence to overcome fears, and “present opportunities . . . you might not have seen on your own.”

It should also be remembered that mentoring is a two-way street. A good mentee has what Hunsicker describes as “passion and the insatiable appetite to be mentored.” While formalized mentoring programs have shown success in some studies, less formal mentoring relationships are successfully created among individuals with similar interests and styles. Mentees, DeLong says, “can no longer just expect to be assigned a mentor; they also have to learn how to attract one.”

Mentoring is crucial for PAs making the transition from clinical practice to clinician/educator. Orientation for new PA educators in our organizations, and in PAEA, should include guidance about seeking and enlisting a personal advisory board of mentors. PAEA provides many opportunities for professional development through structured experiences such as workshops and presentations at its annual and regional meetings. But there is another mechanism available to all of us, one that we access intentionally or inadvertently: social networking with colleagues. This is one of the most important functions of our organization.

The Education Committee and Faculty Development Institute are working to develop other networking opportunities at formal meetings. The new PAEA Web site and communications systems now under development are expected to create still more opportunities for idea sharing and relationship building. But there is also much that can be done in our programs. Where are tomorrow’s talented PA program directors? In our own backyards. Established PA educators must reach out to mentor the newest entrants to PA education, and future leaders must reach out to their role models for mentorship. Are there risks to mentoring newer members of our program faculty? Certainly. They may become so attractive that they are recruited to be program directors for other programs. But what better could be said of us and our organizations than that our programs are great places to learn and grow; where the next generation of PA education’s leaders are nurtured, assuring the future success of the profession.

Suggested Reading

DeLong TJ, Gabarro JJ, Lees RJ. Why mentoring matters in a hypercompetitive world. Harv Bus Rev. 2008 Jan;86(1):115-121. Nickle P. Cognitive apprenticeship: laying the groundwork for mentoring registered nurses in the intensive care unit. Dynamics. 2007;18(4):19-27. Mayer AP, Files JA, Ko MG, Blair JE. Academic advancement of women in medicine: do socialized gender differences have a role in mentoring? Mayo Clin Proc. 2008;83(2):204-207. Bhagia J, Tinsley JA. The mentoring partnership. Mayo Clin Proc. May 2000;75(5):535-537. Hunsicker RJ. Keeping the passion alive. As we address workforce issues, we must not overlook the role of passion and mentoring. Behavioral Healthcare. 2007;27(11):55-56.