A survey of residency program directors in anesthesiology regarding mentorship of residents

Mentorship of residents has been extensively studied within many academic specialties, but not anesthesia. The purpose of this study is to determine the prevalence of formal mentorship programs among anesthesia residency programs accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education in the United States by surveying residency directors. The secondary goals of the study are to describe the programs that exist and identify areas that residency directors think should be the focus of mentoring.

Our survey was designed based on previous surveys administered to residency program directors from other specialties. After determination of exempt status by our institutional review board, the survey was administered via e-mail to program directors of Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education-accredited anesthesiology residencies.

Response rate was 34% (45/131). The sample consisted of mainly university-based programs (93%). Most (88%) had a mentorship program in place. There was little consistency between methods of forming faculty-resident mentor pairs. Most mentors (84%) and mentees (79%) did not evaluate their programs. Nearly all program directors agree that mentorship is an important tool for resident development (90.6%) and that it is important to have a mentor during training (90.6%). Program directors identified the areas of career planning, professionalism, and achieving a balance between personal, career, and family demands to be the most valuable subjects to address in a mentoring relationship.

Anesthesiology is currently underrepresented in the trainee mentoring literature. There is significant support for mentorship during resident training; however, the low rates of training for faculty and minimal evaluation by residents and faculty raise the question as to the efficacy of the existing programs. There is a need for more investigation of anesthesia residents' goals and perceptions of mentorship, and a more detailed evaluation of existing mentorship programs to determine the ideal structure of a mentoring program.