Poster4 - 05: THE MENTOR MATCH: A NEW APPROACH TO IMPLEMENTING FORMAL MENTORSHIP IN GENERAL SURGERY RESIDENCY
Rebecca M Jordan, DO1, Lauryn Ullrich, DO1, Jacqueline Oxenberg, DO1, Joseph Stella, DO1, Joseph Bannon, MD2; 1Geisinger Wyoming Valley, 2Geisinger Community Medical Center
Introduction: Mentorship has multiple benefits in surgical training including improved career satisfaction, academic success, networking, and better work-family balance. While it is recommended that surgical residencies have an established mentorship program (MP), only 50% of programs within surgery departments in the United States are well established, most being informal and unstructured. Realizing that our institution’s mentorship program was similarly unstructured, the decision was made to develop a formal MP. To successfully pair mentors and mentees based on their strengths and interests, a match process was designed based on the ACGME core competencies.
Methods: Surveys were administered to residents PGY1-4 and faculty in December of 2016. Both groups were asked to rank six areas in ascending order of need for improvement. These areas, based on the ACGME core competencies, included: operative skills (patient care), ABSITE preparation (medical knowledge), leadership (communication skills), research (practice based learning), career guidance (system based practice), and interpersonal relationships (professionalism). Field of interest, established mentor relationships, desired frequency of meetings, and mentor preferences were collected as well. The program director and associate program director assigned mentors based on best match results. Residents and mentors met formally each quarter (every 3 months) during which Medhub evaluations were to be completed by mentors. After one year, residents were surveyed anonymously to evaluate the program.
Results: Resident participation in the program was 100% while survey response was 83%. Ninety-two percent of residents surveyed were satisfied with the mentorship program overall and 83% saw improvement in the areas they ranked as highest need on the initial survey. Seventy-five percent felt that the match process was an effective method for matching mentors and mentees. While all residents met formally with their mentor each quarter, many also reported frequent informal meetings. Fifty percent of residents discussed the core competencies, among other topics, at each meeting.
Conclusion: The matching process for a formal mentorship program was found to be effective, with positive subjective results after the initial year of implementation. Future analyses will be conducted evaluating individual improvement in the six ACGME core competencies for each resident.