Mentorship Under Pressure: Insights from National Scholarly Concentration Programs
Mary Rojas1, Sonia Lobo2, Mabel Perez-Oquendo3
1Department of Medical Education, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Director of the Medical Student Research Office, New York, NY USA.
Medical Science Educator
|April 6, 2026
Summary
Medical students face pressure for research productivity, leading to challenges in mentorship and equity. Institutions must support scholarly mentorship as core labor to create sustainable research environments.
Area of Science:
- Medical Education
- Research Mentorship
Background:
- Research productivity is increasingly vital for medical residency selection.
- This drives expansion of medical school research programs and escalates expectations for students and faculty.
Purpose of the Study:
- To identify shared challenges and adaptive strategies in medical student research programs.
- Focus areas included mentor recruitment, student-mentor dynamics, and conflict resolution.
Main Methods:
- Convened a national roundtable in June 2025.
- Included directors from over 40 U.S. medical schools' Medical Student Research Offices and Scholarly Concentration Programs.
Main Results:
- Identified seven cross-cutting themes: faculty fatigue, misaligned expectations, need for mentor training, and rising inequities in research access.
- Observed increasing student anxiety, mentor fatigue, reliance on uncompensated labor, and a disconnect between student competitiveness needs and institutional support.
Conclusions:
- Scholarly mentorship must be recognized as core educational labor by medical education leaders.
- Institutions need to align accreditation, invest in infrastructure, and implement tracking systems promoting research depth for equitable and sustainable ecosystems.
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