Approaches to Designing Faculty Mentoring Programs in Medical Education

Abstract

The vital role of structured mentoring programs in a faculty member’s life is unquestionable; different approaches to designing such programs have been proposed in the health sciences education literature. Traditionally, these approaches have portrayed a dyad model, in which pairs of mentors and mentees are assigned to work together. However, in the last decade, the academic field has been advocating for multiple mentoring models, in which mentoring networks are pursued and composed of a set of multiple mentors who can assist an academic both personally and professionally throughout their careers and in a variety of career competencies. Still, there is a dearth of literature in health sciences education on how to go about identifying the right program model and designing it. In this chapter, we review the main characteristics of these two distinct approaches to developing mentoring programs, the dyad model and the multiple mentoring model, while proposing using a published checklist to guide the program design and implementation. We will illustrate these concepts with a case study based on our own experiences as directors of mentoring programs for health sciences educators. We hope that this chapter will help inform the design, implementation, and evaluation of faculty mentoring programs in health sciences education.