What makes mentors thrive? An exploratory study of their satisfaction in undergraduate medical education

Elise Pauline Skjevik; Edvin Schei; J Donald Boudreau; Arne Tjølsen; Unni Ringberg; Abraham Fuks; Monika Kvernenes; Eirik H Ofstad

doi:10.1186/s12909-024-05344-y

What makes mentors thrive? An exploratory study of their satisfaction in undergraduate medical education

BMC Med Educ. 2024 Apr 4;24(1):372. doi: 10.1186/s12909-024-05344-y.

Authors

Elise Pauline Skjevik¹, Edvin Schei², J Donald Boudreau^{3

4}, Arne Tjølsen⁵, Unni Ringberg⁶, Abraham Fuks⁷, Monika Kvernenes⁸, Eirik H Ofstad⁹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Community Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, 9037, Norway. elise_skjevik@hotmail.com.
² Department of Global Public Health and Primary Care, Faculty of Medicine, The University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway.
³ Institute of Health Sciences Education, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
⁴ University of Notre Dame, Sydney, Australia.
⁵ Department of Biomedicine and Center for Medical Education, Faculty of Medicine, The University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway.
⁶ Department of Community Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, 9037, Norway.
⁷ Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
⁸ Department of Clinical Medicine, Center for Medical Education, Faculty of Medicine, The University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway.
⁹ Department of Clinical Medicine, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway.

Abstract

Background: Mentoring medical students with varied backgrounds and individual needs can be challenging. Mentors' satisfaction is likely to be important for the quality and sustainability of mentorships, especially in programs where the mentor has responsibility for facilitating a group of mentees. However, little is known about what influences mentors' satisfaction. The aim of this study was to measure mentors' self-reported satisfaction with the mentoring experience and to explore associations between satisfaction and its putative factors.

Methods: An online survey was sent out to all physician mentors in each of the three mentorship programs (UiT The Arctic University of Norway, the University of Bergen, and McGill University, graduation years 2013-2020, n = 461). Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, dimension reduction, and linear regression.

Results: On a scale from 1 to 5, mean mentor satisfaction score at two Norwegian and one Canadian medical school was 4.55 (95% CI 4.47, 4.64). In a multilevel multivariate regression analysis, two predictors were significantly associated with mentors' satisfaction: (1) the perception that students found the group meetings valuable (β = 0.186, 95% CI 0.021, 0.351, p = 0.027) and (2) mentors' perceived rewards (β = 0.330, 95% CI 0.224, 0.437, p < 0.001). Perceived rewards included experiencing gratifying relationships with students, and mentors' perception of self-development.

Conclusions: In this study, mentors appeared to be highly satisfied with their mentoring functions. Our findings suggest that mentors' overall satisfaction is closely linked to their experiences of fulfilling mentor-student relationships and personal and professional development. Interestingly, and perhaps contrary to commonly held assumptions, we found no association between mentor satisfaction and financial compensation. Furthermore, satisfaction was not associated with the provision of pre-assigned topics for discussions for mentor group meetings. We propose that the mentors' experienced psycho-social rewards, and their competence in establishing well-functioning group dynamics, should be areas of focus for faculty development.

Keywords: Group mentorship; Medical education; Mentoring; Rewards; Satisfaction.

MeSH terms

Canada
Education, Medical, Undergraduate*
Humans
Mentoring*
Mentors
Personal Satisfaction
Students, Medical*