Evaluation of a collaborative mentorship program in a multi-site postgraduate training program

Traditional one-on-one mentorship of trainees is challenging for multi-site training programs. Our three-site Neonatal - Perinatal Medicine Training Program therefore implemented collaborative mentorship.

To describe and evaluate the effectiveness of collaborative mentorship.

Faculty Advisory Committee Triads (FACTs), comprising one staff neonatologist from each site, were created for each trainee. Guidelines for meeting frequency and process were developed. After 3 years, participants were invited to complete a questionnaire exploring three domains - helpfulness, participant opinion, and process.

Twenty-four staff participated in 32 FACTs that mentored 32 trainees; 19 staff (79%) and 19 trainees (60%) completed the survey. All but one respondent preferred FACTs to individual mentors. Trainees were comfortable discussing both training program issues (90%) and social or personal issues (47%) with their FACT. Despite various ethno-cultural backgrounds, only 26% thought these should be similar for FACTs and trainees. More than 80% found FACTs supportive and beneficial for providing staff contacts at each site. Trainees found FACTs helpful for career planning, resource identification, clinical performance advice, and research motivation. More staff (79%) than trainees (33%) felt FACTs helped trainees get started in the program (p = 0.01), perhaps because not all trainees (47%) met with their FACT at the start of training. FACTs met one to four times annually; staff availability made scheduling difficult.

In a multi-site training program, collaborative mentorship was effective in overcoming many barriers encountered with one-on-one mentorship.