Ensuring Mentorship of New Physicians in Their First Year: Constructs for New Mentoring Processes

The importance of mentoring new physicians is well established.

To evaluate and improve use of a competencies-based mentoring checklist to help new physicians understand the basic work environment and resources in their daily jobs as well as achieve needed competencies.

Literature searches, process improvements, and a review of curricula and mentoring from both inside and outside our large Medical Group were conducted to understand the workflow for new physician orientation, onboarding, and mentoring processes. We aimed to achieve a structured framework for mentor training, evaluation of the mentor-mentee relationship, and development of a bridge for the knowledge gaps and needs of the individual physicians in their departments. Finally, we surveyed new physician hires/mentees in 2017 about their competencies using the new checklist.

The new mentoring process was improved compared with the current mentoring process. Polling of physician mentees after implementation of the checklist showed a 75% completion rate of checklist competencies from January 2017 to April 2018, compared with a baseline of 0%.

Review of performance data and addressing deficiencies in a mentoring relationship can lead to active participation and meaningful change in competencies among new physicians.