Tales of Mentoring in Radiology: The Experience of Residents and Mentors at a Single Academic Program

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate the utility of mentoring groups in radiology residency.

Methods: Five assistant professors of Radiology and 20 radiology residents were divided into 5 groups. One resident from each academic year was randomly paired with a mentor group. Three 1-hour group mentoring sessions took place over the year. Upon completion of the project an anonymous Quality Improvement survey of 20 questions were sent out to participants to assess the utility of these mentoring sessions.

Results: Four mentors out of 5 responded. All 4 had prior neutral and positive experiences as mentees involving career advice and subspecialty choice. During this experience all mentors had a positive experience. The majority found it helpful to have residents of different levels in their group to allow for peer to peer mentoring and all thought the mentoring program should continue. The most common topics they covered during the sessions were career advice and specialty choice. Sixteen residents out of 20 responded. The majority had had a previous mentor experience which was mostly positive or very positive and predominantly career and/or research related. Almost all of them had a positive or very positive mentoring experience this year. The high majority found that having residents of different levels was beneficial. Topics that mentoring sessions helped mostly with were career advice, work life balance and study skills. All of the mentees thought the mentoring program should continue.

Conclusions: Mentoring groups can be a valuable addition to residency training, especially in helping with career advice and work life balance.