Well, hello and welcome to today's webcast on research mentorship. My name is Amy Kiskaddin, I'm Assistant Professor of Pediatric Cardiology and Hematology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, I'm a Clinical Pharmacy Specialist at Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital. I'll be moderating our webcast today. A recording of this will be available approximately five to seven business days after, and you can access this by logging into your MySCCM.org and navigate to the My Learning tab where we can access a recording. Just a few minor housekeeping things before we get started, there will be a question and answer panel at the end of our presentation today, and to submit questions, you can do this through the presentation by typing into the question box, which is located on your control panel. And then please note that the disclaimer stating that the content to follow is for educational purposes only from our webinar today. And now I'd like to introduce you to our panelists. Sheila Alexander is Associate Professor of Nursing and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Ashish Khanna is an Anesthesiologist and Intensivist and Associate Professor of Anesthesiology at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Mary Lou is an Implementation Scientist and Clinical Nurse Specialist at Stanford Healthcare in Palo Alto, California. Jerry Zimmerman is Faculty of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine at Seattle Children's Hospital in Seattle, Washington. And I will now be turning things over to our first presenter. Let me start by unmuting myself. Thank you, Amy. And it's a pleasure, and as the Chair of the Discovery Research Network and the former Chair of the Research Section, I'm excited to bring this important webcast to our audiences. This is a standard disclosure slide for all of us who are either speakers or panelists on this webcast today. So I'm going to start with some very basic learning objectives as a standard for an educational activity. Today, we have four learning objectives. One is to describe research mentorship and distinguish it from other forms of mentorship. Another one is to propose how an individual development plan helps in establishing research goals. Furthermore, to discuss lessons learned from research mentor-mentee pairs. And then finally, and importantly, is to implement a funded investigator-initiated research study in the ICU clinical setting. So in terms of mentorship, when we think about mentorship, I think these are some thoughts that, you know, initially cross our minds. The definition of mentorship can be fairly loose or can be fairly specific, depending on whatever context you want to give it. I use words like trust, mutual respect, shared expectation, and most importantly, a partnership between two individuals based on a common goal. And again, there would be many different flavors to mentorship that all of you all in the audience have experienced. And I'd love to hear from you all after all of us have spoken, because we'd love to get into that discussion of what mentorship really is. Successful mentorship depends on both the mentor and the mentee. In terms of the mentor's side of things, there is a concept of transformational mentorship, which really means that you should have the ability as a mentor to offer something to the mentee and to yourself. And there should be a sense of excitement in that relationship. You see important aspects of the transformational component of things are camaraderie, which truly means that the mentor and mentee should coexist in a relaxed environment and should inspire camaraderie. The relationship itself should be totally driven by scientific curiosity. And there should be a desire on both sides for both personal and professional growth. And I can't stress the importance of the personal component of it. I truly feel that quite often we're looking for those mentors where we feel that the mentor is going to be my road to professional success. But you have to understand that the personal journey is also really important on both sides, because if you don't really understand your mentee's personal journey, you're never going to be able to truly be a successful mentor. Now from the mentee's perspective, you have to find the right person. And I guess, you know, easier said than done. But some things that I'd offer out is things like looking beyond obvious places. And I'd be the first one to share that, you know, 99.9% of my mentors have been extra institutional, have been outside of, you know, my institution, have sometimes been outside the country, have been in a totally different part of the world. But all of them have given me something really, really important. Ask to meet before you ask for mentoring. And I think this is really important to sort of, you know, know what your mentor is looking for in a relationship. That first meeting is really critical. Meeting the waters is critical. So, you know, maybe you want to see, you know, I have a small little idea or a project. Let's see how it goes, you know, before you jump into something really, really big. And then importantly, do not limit yourself. The opportunities are endless. You know, you will grow professionally, personally, but you have to keep going and you have to truly feel that the sky is the limit with this relationship to really get the best out of a mentoring relationship. Mentorship, at least in terms of the definition of what it is, can be compared to other teaching strategies, but there are subtle and important differences. These are highlighted on the slide. But if you sort of go down the list, mentorship, again, by definition, it comes across as advising with shared expectations and goals in an informal setting versus teaching, which is instruction in a limited setting, which is, you know, usually a classroom kind of environment. Coaching, on the other hand, can be more structured and more organized than mentorship and in general is done in a formal setting. And then finally, sponsorship, which is promoting growth and career advancement, is also slightly different from mentorship per se, although I will personally tell you that if I am mentoring someone, I will also truly try and be that person's sponsor because that almost comes with that relationship. There are many ways to mentor, and to further elaborate on all of this, I have my colleague and good friend, Mary Lau. Mary's, you know, been a great, great resource to SCCM research and is one of the leaders with the SCCM research section, so I'm going to hand it over to Mary. Thank you very much, Ashish, that's great. And I'm going to build, hopefully, on what you say, and I also am a past chair of the research section, and it's just a wonderful thing to become involved in. I loved this quote from an article by West, and you can see below. The quote is, the intent of mentoring is not usually to rectify weaknesses, but to help shape a career or to support an individual that shows promise. And I really liked that somewhat altruistic version, and I'll reference this short paper by West. It's from clinical sports medicine, and I'll reference it a couple of times. And that's because I think sports really does use a lot of mentoring and coaching, and we can probably learn from that. Thank you, on the next slide. I think that just as Dr. Khanna said, the mentorship intersects with similar roles, and these came from various online dictionaries. So the mentor, the concept of trusted counselor or guide, versus coaching, which is more like training or you have a curriculum to follow. A consultant, one who gives professional advice, I often think of like a bank manager or someone you have to go to for some specific piece of information. Sponsor, when you promote somebody or suggest them for an award or suggest them for a position or a study. A peer, peer-to-peer mentoring is helpful too, to someone who's of equal standing. Or your boss, and I think this is important to mention because if you are mentoring somebody who is a trainee, when you offer a mentoring suggestion, it's not really just a suggestion. There is an aspect of directive, versus if you are mentoring and there's no formal relationship by your institution or due to a research study, then it's more, more open-ended perhaps. So I think that what is your, what are your relationships other than mentoring is important in some situations. And then teacher, obviously instructing, sometimes people give the example of someone showing you how to put in a CVP line or some other procedure. And then a role model, a person whose behavior in a particular role is imitated by others. And I think we may all know of someone who is a mentor to us, but also becomes a role model and maybe it's something to aspire to. Next slide, please. This is another interesting paper by Strauss and colleagues. And they interviewed, I believe, 54 mentor-mentee pairs across an academic medical center to say what made it work and what didn't. And the successful mentors or relationships were described as having reciprocity, respect on both sides, clear expectations, a personal connection and shared values. So mentoring failed when there was poor communication on either side, lack of commitment, personality differences, hard to do much about that, perceived or real competition, conflict of interest, or the mentor's lack of experience was cited. But I would think the lack of experience might be able to be made up a little bit by if one has clear expectations, personal connection, shared values, all of those other things. Next slide, please. I thought it was really interesting from the same paper that they showed the different perspectives of the mentors versus the mentees. So what did the mentees think helped you be an effective mentor starting on the left side, becoming an effective mentor? They thought your conversation was not limited to work. You asked how the person was, you were concerned about them as a person, you wanted to know could they achieve work and personal life balance, that you cared about them. Sharing relevant emotional experiences, if a paper was rejected or a grant was rejected, recounting, oh, I remember when that happened to me and bonding with the person on that while offering advice. Where it says offer advice only as advice, if someone's your trainee and you're in a formal relationship in an institution, hospital, then your advice might be also directive. You need to do this. Whereas if you're in a more open, shall I say open or more informal relationship, your advice is only advice. And I think that's helpful to know. From my own experience, you might explain why you're giving this advice. But often in the end, you offer what you think that the mentee has to decide what to do about it. And then mutual accountability, so clear expectations again. I thought it was really interesting what the mentors said made a mentee effective, completely different list. For example, if you look at the mentors list, it's all about really personality, behavior, relationships. None of it really says this person has this great skill. But to be an effective mentee, what was recommended was the mentee come prepared to the meetings, maybe comes with a list of questions, is open to feedback, is an active listener, and avoids last minute grant paper review or that reference letter requests as this increases the mentor stress. And I think we've all probably had that happen to or maybe done that. And ideally, from the mentor's perspective, the mentee takes responsibility for driving the relationship and fostering mutual respect. Well, maybe everyone would love a mentee who is the driver and was totally prepared. But some conversation may help explore the two sides of this partnership. Next slide, please. So this is a really inspirational paper to read from Zhang et al. And it's from the American Heart Association. And it's what makes a great mentor. And it was interviews with recipients of a mentorship of women award. And what struck me with these adjectives that the mentees for these mentors said was none of them were about their skills. None of them said, oh, they're a great researcher, oh, they're a great surgeon, they're a great cardiologist. None of them said that. They used terms like integrity, courage, communication skills, authenticity, honesty, and then ability to inspire, energy, creativity, positivity and optimism, action-oriented, vision. To me, this is describing the stage when a mentor becomes a role model. And not every mentor, you might not have all of these adjectives, but they all speak to the importance of this person, not only as an individual mentor, but somehow a bigger role in inspiring others, patience, reflectiveness, flexibility, curiosity, ability to listen, kindness and empathy, dedication, commitment, hard work. So a role model, but we also see with kindness and empathy, ability to listen, an interest in the person they're mentoring. This is a very celebratory paper to read. Next slide, please. So after all those role model fabulous words, can mentoring skills be learned? Talking about the West paper, there is a list of 10 steps that West said. If you went through them, this will help you be a good mentor. And I've reduced these somewhat, but it's good to think that it can be learned. So the beginning, establish the relationship, create a safe mentoring environment. So whether you meet or you discuss, it's on Zoom, it's in person, you establish the beginning of the relationship and your interest in the person as well as what you're going to accomplish. During the relationships for mentoring, use questions and self-reflection. So use what questions, how questions, when, very sort of open-ended questions beginning with a query. So as you don't force someone into a singular position, you're helping them to explore. You're offering diverse learning opportunities that open professional doors. And then while some mentorship relationships really last a long time, others, you know, have a finite term and they close. So consolidate, summarize the learning to bring and the accomplishments to bring closure. And then it's recommended to keep in touch to follow up. I know for me, I'm always thrilled when a prior mentee will reach out and it was said it doesn't have to be that they're reaching out for something. Maybe they're just reaching out to tell you how they're doing or an accomplishment in their career or their personal life and how exciting is that. So it can be learned. And what I really have learned from this is much more about the relationship. That's what's important to the mentees often. Next slide, please. So in summary, to the mentor, what are the benefits? You get a sense of purpose, giving back, paying it forward. It's nice to contribute to the careers of others. It can enhance the mentor's leadership skills, especially if those are soft skills, someone who's not in your organization. I like that the mentee can help the mentor challenge old behaviors or beliefs. Oh, that's not really how it's thought about today in my generation, for example, or at my new organization. And I think it's also an opportunity to teach the mentoring process so others can pay it forward too. So you teach one and then your mentee can go forward. For the mentee, I think there are clear benefits if they have a vested mentor. Increased engagement with the science and research community, certainly SCCM, and just that experience of increased research opportunities, collaboration and network opportunities. I don't remember who gave the quote 99% of life is just showing up, but I think for the mentee, mentor, that really holds true. Next slide, please. This is a podcast where Dr. Lewis Kaplan and Dr. Ken Remy, who is actually the chair of the current research section this year, did, and it's just 30 minutes, and it's about mentorship, benefits to the mentor and mentee. It's an easy read, sorry, an easy listen if you listen to podcasts, and I thought it was very good. It says very similar things to what we have said, what we've all said, but nice to hear if you're an audio learner. So, it's a bi-directional relationship. They said it may start off hierarchical. For example, someone's your trainee, but over time can become collaborative as you work on projects together, or someone moves into a different setting and becomes a collaborator. Ideally, it's a durable relationship that will grow over time, and they emphasize that there are many different types of mentors that can be found to span your entire career. I think Dr. Remy talked about having research mentors versus clinical mentors versus other types of mentors, for example, at SCCM. How best to find mentors? They said to identify your gap or need. They thought that early career, your mentors are likely to be in the same organization. They're sort of close within your circle, but when you're mid-career, that may not work for you anymore, and they thought conferences such as SCCM Congress are helpful to widen your circle. I think it's getting involved, and then ultimately transitioning to become a mentor for others. So, if you have been successfully mentored, it makes it easy to replicate that and do good for others, and I love this question that was at the end of their podcast. It's a question to ask your mentee. How can I improve as a mentor? I really like that. How can I improve as a mentor? Next slide, please. So, in summary, it may be a situation where you, as a mentor, are directly responsible for a trainee's professional development, and in that case, there is really some coaching and teaching and other aspects involved. It might be involved in using different instruments for research studies. It could be about the design of a study, feasibility, observational techniques, or creating theoretical or cognitive frameworks. So, this is, it's mentoring, but there are definite skill sets involved, and I think the other aspect that's really helpful in mentoring is emphasizing scientific standards and ethics. We know how many retractions there are in scientific literature today. So, helping with selection of research questions and data, describing ethical authorship practices, how teams work together, the norms of communication, and interpretation and judgment of your study, of the literature. I think in this situation, research mentorship and authoring covers more than skills. It really is the ethics and understanding of the field to contribute good science. Next slide, please. And then, finally, there's a benefit to us all. Mentorship programs, to be successful, often require institutional engagement with a clear articulation of institutional goals and values, as well as financial and political support, and I actually think I should hand over to my colleague, Dr. Amy Kishkadan, at this point, and my apologies for speaking. No, it's all good. This is excellent. So, with regards to some of the literature that's been published, there's been some studies that have discussed having mentorship programs specific to research and how to facilitate the training of individuals for that, ideally looking for those who could become potential leaders throughout an organization, who are able to support the innovation and the flexibility that the organization will need to get to throttle forward, and then we, I think, are all aware that with research and being able to quantify some of the findings that we have questions about, there is a sense of job satisfaction, which can then lead to retention, and also can enhance the institution's overall competitive position. We also know that there is the potential for burnout, but having some sort of relationship or mentorship that exists can actually help mitigate some of that professional burnout that could be otherwise seen, because I think you learn how to navigate some of those waters, just both from a stress level perspective, but then also the projects themselves, which can help mitigate that. There's another study by Colleen and colleagues that was published that looked at the culture within mentorship, and found that really for the success of any academic medical center, having some sort of mentorship culture was key to that being achieved, and actually can help be a part of the strategic priority for the institution at large, and that this culture or environment of mentorship that can exist within a medical center can also then capitalize on some of the institutions' intellectual resources that they have that exist, and it can also help develop the next generation of leaders who are going to be setting the pace with regards to biomedical discovery, changes in patient care, clinical care, translating that into the bedside, and then as well as participating in the education on research, and then even the education of the next generation. So I'll spend the rest of our time today, and these slides are going quickly, a little talking about the research mentorship program that we have within SCCM. This is just an excerpt from our 2021 mentor-mentor committee statement, in which we described an effort to guide mentees with regards to research, and basically summing up that work, we're going to talk a little bit about research, and basically summing up that within, knowing that within academic medicine, there is evidence that supports the importance of mentorship, and then as our careers advance, having a mentor can significantly influence, especially within the realm of research, and this can also provide guidance, and so while our academic careers often follow a course, an established course with, you know, you have different role models and designated career ladders, the academic research tends to have fewer role models in how to make this happen, and it can actually vary as well with regards to the institutional research and other things that are being developed with regards to new faculty. So what has been identified and seen is that there really is a need for experienced research mentors who can help guide the development of sound clinical research skills, and also as those skills advance, as healthcare advances, the junior investigators then can benefit from that, and ultimately themselves then be able to turn around and do that and pay that back for the next generation, and so that's kind of where our SCCM research section mentoring committee was established. It was basically to promote an effort that would guide mentees to be able to conduct quality research, and the way we've done this is by matching mentees and mentors who express interest in participating, and this is based off of potentially their interest areas, what they do, and then they are matched for a set time period, and the committee has grown since 2019. We endured COVID. It is multidisciplinary, multi-professional, so we have pharmacists, we have nurses, we have physicians, we have basic scientists, and it's been, I think, a real enjoyment to observe and help be a part of. These are just some data that we had quantified, so what we have here are two figures. We have one figure on top that is the mentor's response, and then the bottom is the mentee's response, and this is a Likert scale, and what we found was that overall, we surveyed the participants of our group one year, and we found that both the mentor and the mentee had very positive responses in the participation in the actual program, and that they would do it again, and that they felt that it had been valuable to their growth professionally. So what is our mentee-mentee program, and it's really an effort to guide mentees in quality research, and this is by creating an environment that would then have desirable research outcomes. It can be really a portion of a research element. It could be even a topic. It's really very open and allows the mentor and mentee to really decide what it is they want to focus on. It could be something such as data collection. It could be something such as data analysis, publishing, you know, anything. There is a two-year time period that we request the mentor-mentee to be part of, and any STC member is able to participate as a mentor or mentee in this particular program, and we encourage the mentor-mentee to meet regularly. In addition, we'll try to have regular meetings throughout the year and touch points as well with them, but also respecting that everybody's fairly busy, so keeping it essential, I think, is always important. I'm going to go through this figure in a little bit more detail, but this is an example of our timeline and key points along the mentor-mentee program. This is the overall picture, and then the next two slides, I'll go through a zoomed-in view, a breakdown of this, so we can have a better visualization of it. For example, in year one, usually around August or September, there'll be a call for mentor-mentee pairing. This is distributed via STC Connect research page as an announcement. Once we have interest from individuals, we then would go through a pairing process and then distributing that pair list so that the potential mentor-mentee pair, if they're both at Congress, would then be able to meet together and have that in-person, face-to-face type of a connection, and then allow for subsequent meetings to occur that will likely be virtually unless they happen to be from the same institution, but for the most part, they tend to be from different institutions. Then the following year, they'll work on an individualized development plan, or we refer to this as the IDP, and then that kind of allows there to be a roadwork or a framework for what it is exactly that wants to be achieved by the mentor-mentee connection, and then that gives them something to work towards so that at the end of this time period, they can look back and see the success that they've had. So again, based off of the IDP, this would be a deliverable start that they would have that, that they would start working on their end product, and then they're deliverable. So this would occur during the first year between May and August, typically. So then there's a couple different bars that can be happening. I guess you could say options. For example, let's say the deliverable or the goal that they had was completed. Well, then the mentor-mentee would then have the option to continue with a second project, or they could decide that they'd like to just go ahead and part ways at that point. Alternatively, they could continue with the IDP and continue on with additional goals. Maybe they want to set up a retrospective study or do a prospective study together, so they may continue on with that mentor-mentee relationship. There's also the option to present their work at the annual congress, which is always an option as a part of an abstract or even a workshop, and then also continuing with manuscript preparation if the manuscript or project was part of the goal for the IDP. And then if the IDP is not being progressed on, there would be mutual agreement to continue, or potentially it needs to be modified and progressed in different ways at that point. There are some general mentor-mentee program expectations. One is there be initial communication and contact, and so typically the mentee is the one who contacts the mentor. Usually they share the CV and they set up that initial communication that can happen. They then usually will meet after that and end up actually setting up a series of regular meetings or some sort of standard way of communicating about their progress on what they may be wanting to work on. So one of the first things that we ask is that there be goals established by the mentor-mentee. This is part of the IDP, that there be something that is being worked on during the year, and then that gets communicated to the mentor subcommittee co-chairs. This allows there ultimately to be a way to go back and assess whether the goals were achieved, which is really the goal, which is the overall goal of the mentor-mentee program, is that there is benefit that ensues because of this pairing. There are some examples here of shared goals that have been utilized or they're just general ideas, but this could be something such as improving your grant writing or learning how to do grant writing, talking about ways of doing data collection or data analysis, discussion about designing studies. It could be a retrospective study, it could be a prospective study, it could even be something more like a database type of a study, but we're being able to work on that together. Being able to work on manuscript writing and then the subsequent presenting of that, as well as the overall data visualization and how to share data and disseminate in a way that's visually appealing to the audience. So these are just some examples, this is not an exhaustive list by any means, but hopefully something that can generate some thoughts and lead to some even more ideas for goals that could be had. So there is, as mentioned previously, an individual development program, so this is the IDP, and this is what will be discussed at the initial meeting. We do have a template that we send out that can be utilized, includes names, dates, what are some of the professional goals to be had, and then how would a pairing of a mentor-mentee help achieve those particular goals. So it really is a simple one page, maybe not even that type of a document, but helps set the pace and the stage for the year or years to come. Meetings are regular, we try to recommend that they occur at least every few months just to keep things moving forward. I know we all get quite busy with our jobs, our work, other things going on, but it does allow there to be some sort of accountability, I think, to even just help things keep moving forward with the aim that the mutually agreed upon goals would be focused on. This is a screenshot of our guideline for success within the research sections mentor-mentee program. This really, here in red, is what we get where we discuss more going into the IDP plan. So one of it is going to be the mentors, contacts, exchanging CVs, then writing out this plan, and then here are the goals. In red, you can see there's grant writing, there's examples of things that can be worked on, and then that gets shared to the co-chairs with subsequent meetings. So just an example of what it might particularly entail. Again, it's a very simple, straightforward process. So what are some of the strengths of the research mentor-mentee program within the FTCM research section? This gets back to the fact that it's interprofessional. So we have physicians, we have a variety of physicians. So some are surgeons, we have anesthesiologists, we have intensivists, we have respiratory therapists who've been part of this, we have nurses of varying types of practice, we have pharmacists who participated, we have basic scientists. Sometimes you have individuals who are newer out of training, then you'll have individuals who are maybe just looking for a skill set to develop, and they're a little, a few years out. The other strengths of this are the fact that there are goals established at the beginning of the pairing. I think this is very important, and it's definitely a strength of this because it does lay that groundwork in that frame for allowing the mentor-mentee pair to actually begin working on something. So instead of just meeting and being like, well, what do you want to talk about, it's actually you're working towards a common goal. And that's definitely a strength of this particular program. And then the development of the individual development plan is definitely a strength as well, just given that it provides that overarching guidance to things and then allows you to look back and see the successes that have been attained. Some other things is that we do have a regular feedback cycle. And so this is some of the ones, this has been very beneficial to the overall development and growth of our mentor program. We have sought feedback from participants who participate in the program, as well as the section leadership. And we've had some very, I think, thoughtful and constructive feedback over the time that this has been going on. For an example is just in recently, we did have some feedback that led to program modifications that led to a more succinct and goal-directed mentor-mentee program guideline to hopefully then translate into the mentor-mentee pair, having more directed and clear aims for what their partnership would entail and what it would result in. So really then having end goals in place for the mentor-mentee pairing and what they would be working towards. The other thing is that there is feedback provided about metrics to measure the success because it can be challenging to measure success of a mentor-mentee pair. But again, going back to the feedback that was received and being able to set aside what would be clear expectations and goals and then going back and saying where these goals achieved, that actually allows there to be some type of metrics that is provided. And then there's workshop and meeting planning for the mentor-mentee pairs. And so this, in addition to meeting individually with each other, there are opportunities as well for there to be more group type of meetings depending on availability, that then allows there to be more discussion and collaboration amongst other pairs for projects, project development and other types of growth items. And so with this, we're going to now move into our panel discussion with the panelists that we introduced at the beginning of today's webcast. And so we'll go ahead and open it up for discussion. Please feel free to put questions in the chat about anything related to mentorship. We would be more than happy to speak to all of those questions or thoughts or conversations that you might have. And we thank you for your time in attending. All right, so we do have a question from the audience. Do you have a link to the FDCM Research Mentorship Program? Is there, if there is a link, I can provide it to them. This is an excellent question and anyone else from the panel is welcome to join in as well. We do post the information on the SCCM Connect webpage. So that's the form of communication. That's probably the best area to find information. And after today's webinar, we can certainly work on posting some updated information to it. But other than that, it's on our research section and others, Mary, Ash, Sheila, Jerry, feel free to chime in as well. Okay. So hi, I'm Sheila Alexander. I think I just wanted to say, first of all, thank you all. That was a wonderful set of presentations. And for me, I actually was chair of the research section a very long time ago when this was somebody's brainchild. They were just starting to think about it. So it's been really good to see how it's shaped up and formed and what it's been doing. So I see the metrics you've put forth, which I think are wonderful, but can any of you speak to sort of some of the intangible benefits you might see or might've gotten after being a mentor through this program? Sheila, I believe you were a mentor. I was, but then this thing called COVID happened. I mean, legitimately at the 2019 Congress, my mentor, mentee and I were assigned. And unfortunately, once COVID hit, their life really got turned upside down and things just shifted. So, and it kind of was very early in the program. Very early in the program. So I think maybe, can someone speak to their successes? I mean, I can start. Sheila, obviously, I was still a baby sitting in the audiences when you started all of the work with the great work at the research section. And I'll say that even though I have formally not been a mentor, I guess, sitting there and sort of growing up through the ranks, I've had the opportunity to collaborate and mentor several individuals and become a mentee for several others as well. So I think the intangible benefits are really being in that environment that encourages those sorts of discussions. I do believe that there is several challenges and COVID came in at sort of just the right time for a program like this to derail it. But I guess what Amy and colleagues have achieved in terms of an actual metric and sort of defining what needs to be defined, I think the future for this kind of program is really, really bright. What we really need is, as mentors, we need to make ourselves more available. And as mentees, we need to have that sense of enthusiasm and energy that sort of defines that relationship in a better manner. That's just my two cents about sort of the way I've seen this come along. If I can, then I'm gonna ask a follow-up question and I'm hopeful everyone will weigh in on this one because it's more about general mentoring. When I started, I think a lot of today's advice was about mentoring junior mentees, whether it's trainees or junior faculty. And that is so important and so vital to success. And I think that's really important and I think that's what we need to do. So important and so vital to success. But then one of my mentors who is not a nurse, who is not a human researcher, does rat work, at my local institution, we meet. And there came a time, actually, it was shortly after I was tenured and we were having our mentoring meeting and he said, well, okay, so we got you to tenure, now what, are we done? We had a long conversation and we've opted to continue and I have some other mentors in many places. But do you continue to have mentors and do you think it's important to have mentors throughout your career at each stage, even at the full professor level, which is sometimes, I think, challenging? We think we don't need that anymore. I don't know, maybe I'll let Mary start. What do you think, Mary? Yes, I think it is helpful to have mentors. I think one of the suggestions from the papers I read, one was to assess your gaps, right? So if you're not publishing as much as you want or it isn't sort of mentorship in general for all of one's career, but maybe there are some gaps where you feel you look at somebody else and they have a lot of success in a particular area and you say, I would like to improve in this skillset and would you be willing to mentor me? And I think if you are a very experienced professional, then you need to know that you're going to be the one driving that, right? You're going to be the one turning up with the list of questions as was listed. So none of us are perfect and I would say that self-assessment of where you have a gap is what makes you reach out to someone else to help you. And I'm not even sure sometimes that the person needs to be super successful at it. Maybe it's an opportunity for both of you to work together on something, but I think it starts with the gap analysis. Yeah, those are great, great thoughts. We do have a couple more questions in the chat. I want to make sure we get to them in our time allotment. So there is another one. It says, is there a database of mentors and their area of expertise such as qualitative research or grounded theory? Well, I guess, Amy, you're the best person who can answer that as well. Yeah, go ahead, please. Yeah, so the way we do that is we have, when we send out the call for mentors, we do have a list of individuals who have signed up to be mentors and we do have their area of expertise in there. We usually try to keep it to that particular year so that if someone didn't offer to be a mentor, then we would know that they're not to be called on, but we have gone into the backlog of years of Excel files. If we find someone that we don't have a good match to and then we reach out, we have reached out before and asked if they'd be willing to serve as a mentor. So in a way, yes, we have a database, but we try to keep it current with people who are interested in participating. The next question is, what advice would you give to someone who wants to be mentored but is willing to be menteed at the same time? That's a great question. Wow, that is a really good question. And maybe Sheila and Jerry are the two most senior mentors around here. I'm going to, Amy, is it okay? Can I direct this to them? Absolutely. Okay. For me, I think I like playing both roles, which I have throughout my career. When I first started the university where I work, I had a big initiative and they really formed a lot of mentor-mentee pairs. So I often used to say I'm the most mentored person at the university. But what I've found is, as I sort of got more and more mentoring, I wanted to pay that back and also make sure the next generation of people coming behind me were being properly mentored. So I take on mentees regularly. Sometimes, often they are trainees, like that's kind of a given. We all want to get back in that way. But I have also had a couple, twice now where colleagues outside of the university where I work have contacted me and said, there's this young person who is just starting out or maybe they're junior faculty, they're struggling. Would you be willing to mentor with them? And we set up meetings for like once a month. We talk, they get the guidance they need. And I get to feel good about what I do in life. And it works very well, I think, to have both. Jerry, your thoughts? I would agree, at least in the system that I am in at the University of Washington, Department of Pediatrics. I just filled out my annual summary of what I've done over the last year. And near the bottom of this questionnaire are these two questions, who are you mentoring and who are your mentors? So even at the associate professor and a professor level, these questions are being asked by administration to capture this idea that we can give back, as Sheila said, and none of us are perfect. And there's always lots to learn. You know, in the administration world, especially, and in sports, this idea of training, which on one of the first slides, if you remember, this is sort of one subset of mentoring, is very useful for people, even who are advanced in their field. So I think both activities, giving and taking, or giving and receiving throughout your career are good ideas. Everybody's different, and there may be different degrees of this, but I think mentoring and being a mentor is appropriate for anybody. Excellent, yeah. I would say I often think it's humbling being in a mentor and that I often learn, I feel I learn as much. Maybe I don't have expectations from learning, but I do learn about new subjects, ways of approaching things, something I thought or I believed has been challenged as an idea. So I feel that you do learn in unexpected ways when you're a mentor as well. All right, we're gonna keep going. Next question is, with SCCM grants for early career investigators closing in August, do these grants focus on lower income centers or is it an opportunity to look at mentor-mentee relationships? You know, Amy, I can quickly chime in on this. I think it's a great question, and maybe this is something to take back to our core group. The straightforward answer is specifically the grants have not focused on lower income, by lower income centers, they probably mean lower income countries. It's probably their interpretation of centers. But the second part of the question, yes, this is a great opportunity for a mentor-mentee relationship. And I'll say it again and again, this is the perfect grant opportunity for a mentor-mentee relationship, right? You can have a mentor within your organization or outside your organization. And if you are interested in something, you have a good pilot idea and you're searching for a mentor, then reach out to us. And we might actually be able to connect you to an expert in the field who would be interested in sort of working with you on this. Okay, that's excellent. Thank you. The next question is, is the research conducted at the mentor or the mentee's organization, or does it play out in all different ways? Well, my quick one cent there is that it plays out in all different ways. And please don't feel restricted as mentees that if the research is not conducted at your current organizations, that doesn't mean that you cannot do the work, just depends on the flavor of your research. And I'd love to hear from my co-panelists on that. I agree. I agree. I think if you're willing to be proactive, you can do things lots of different ways. And I think there's evidence of that. So a big part of research is being creative and that may be part of it. I think that's the beauty of the time we're living in too. It really, with, what is this, GoToMeeting and Zoom and Teams. I'm sorry, I don't wanna leave that one out, whatever your favorite one is. But with all these different ways we can communicate, it's so much easier to collaborate. So you can collaborate on a project that happens at the mentor's institution, the mentee's institution or someplace in between. It's a nice time to be in this space. Let me just add on to that thought. One of the most important things of the seven things I've written down here, at least for me, is that a mentor can really help a mentee in networking. And this really happens nicely at meetings. So let me take you over and I'll introduce you to whoever, whomever, who may have a particular skill set or experience, but it can happen as well online. And I think that is one of the benefits of being in a mentorship program through Zoom. And I think that's one of the benefits of being in a mentorship program through SCCM is this is, I think, even easier to do. I completely agree with that. One of my early mentors said to me, like the best type of mentor is one who walks you up, introduces you to the biggest name in the room, the most experienced person, and then walks away. And I think that's true in so many ways, so good advice. That's really, really insightful, yeah. All right, we'll take one more question. And it's, how realistic is it with all the time demands we have to support and be engaged in the program? So I guess the question is specifically about this program. I mean, at least from my perception, I guess I'll give a philosophical statement that if you're committed as a mentee, you'll find the time to do it. And that's part of the relationship, right? And I think that just comes with the nature of what we do. There is work-life balance, and then there is work-work balance. So there has to be some sort of commitment from both parties. But I do feel that at least in terms of the overall time burden, I don't think it is huge. And I think that is testament to a lot of your current mentor-mentee pairs as well, Amy, that they're very busy clinically, but they're still able to do all of this. Yeah, no, I think it's doable for sure. And I think it's just a matter of, again, setting what would be your good goals, the goals that you want to achieve, and then also just carving out that time to do it. But maybe setting realistic goals would be a good term, so. Think we have anything else? Well, I think we're at time. So I do want to thank everybody who's attended today. Again, this webcast is recorded. It will be available within five to seven business days, and you can access this by logging to your mySDCM.org, navigating to the My Learning tab. And this will conclude our presentation today. Thank you all so much for coming. We appreciate your time. And thank you to our panelists and speakers for their insights as well. Have a wonderful rest of your week. Thank you. Thank you.

research mentorship

academic settings

Dr. Amy Kiskadden

mentor-mentee structure

professional growth

knowledge exchange

career advancement

mentorship benefits

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Professional Development and Education

Mentor and Mentee

2024

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