Research in progress conference for hospitalists provides valuable peer mentoring

Many academic hospitalist units lack senior mentors. In such groups, peer mentoring may be valuable. To formalize collaboration, we instituted a research-in-progress conference at our institution, and this article describes the format and evaluation data.

The research-in-progress sessions were held every 3 to 4 weeks and followed a specific format. Evaluation forms were completed after each of the 15 sessions during the 2009 academic year. Attendees and presenters completed surveys at the end of the sessions. The projects presented were tracked for successful academic outcomes, namely, publication in a peer-reviewed journal or presentation at a national meeting.

A mean of 9.6 persons were present at each session and completed the evaluations. All 15 presenters rated the climate of the sessions as extremely supportive, and 86% believed they were helpful in advancing their project. A total of 143 evaluations were completed by the attendees, 86% and 96% of whom found the sessions to be intellectually stimulating and to have satisfactorily kept them abreast of their colleagues' scholarly pursuits, respectively. To date, 10 of the 15 projects have translated into successful academic outcomes: 6 peer-reviewed publications and 4 other presentations presented at national meetings.

The research-in-progress conference has been well received and has resulted in academic productivity within our hospitalist division. It is likely that such a conference will be most valuable for groups with limited access to senior mentors.