Abstract
Objective
The study's objective was to identify the important qualities of outstanding mentors
as described by their mentees' letters of nomination for a prestigious lifetime achievement
award in mentorship.
Methods
The Lifetime Achievement in Mentorship Award at the University of California, San
Francisco, recognizes a faculty member who has demonstrated sustained mentoring excellence
in the academic health sciences. Recommendation letters in support of the top 10 nominees
in 2008 (n=53 letters) were analyzed using grounded theory and constant comparative technique
until thematic saturation was achieved.
Results
In 2008, 29 faculty members (of>1000 eligible senior faculty) were nominated. Nominees were 53 to 78 years old, and
30% were women. The nominees represented 4 schools (Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy and
Dentistry) and 22 departments/divisions. Five themes emerged from the analysis. Outstanding
mentors: 1) exhibit admirable personal qualitites, including enthusiasm, compassion,
and selflessness; 2) act as a career guide, offering a vision but purposefully tailoring
support to each mentee; 3) make strong time commitments with regular, frequent, and
high-quality meetings; 4) support personal/professional balance; and 5) leave a legacy
of how to be a good mentor through role modeling and instituting policies that set
global expectations and standards for mentorship.
Conclusion
This is the first study to describe the qualities of admired mentors by analyzing
nomination letters for a prestigious mentoring award. Our results give new insight
into how mentors foster the careers of junior faculty in the academic health sciences.
The results can guide academic leaders on how to train and evaluate mentors.
Keywords
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Article Info
Footnotes
Funding: There are no funding sources to report, and no authors received pharmaceutical industry funds for the preparation of this article or any related research.
Conflict of Interest: none.
Authorship: All authors had access to the data and played a role in writing this manuscript.
Identification
Copyright
© 2011 Elsevier Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.