Expert Guidance on High-Quality Mentoring in Hospice and Palliative Medicine Research

Research in the field of hospice and palliative medicine (HPM) is necessarily interdisciplinary, requiring mentorship across diverse disciplines and methods to advance science. As the field grows, mentorship of the next generation of HPM researchers is of paramount importance. To advance HPM research, the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM) Research Committee gathered and synthesized expert recommendations for provision of high-quality mentorship.

Experts in codesign methodology led five sequential codesign focus groups with a purposeful sample of n=14 senior HPM research mentors representing a variety of discipline backgrounds, methods foci, and geographical locations. Participants iteratively identified and refined the attributes of high-quality mentorship in HPM research using Stanford Inverted Co-Design, a codesign approach focused on inverting participant expectations to promote engagement and elicit a broader range of feedback. We employed rapid analysis to identify themes, using previously established functions of mentor relationships as a starting framework to characterize, adapt, and expand definitions and examples of quality mentorship in HPM research.

In focus groups, senior HPM mentors identified that high-quality, interdisciplinary HPM research mentorship relies on purposeful implementation of various mentor-driven activities, including sponsorship, exposure, challenging assignments, coaching, protection, role modeling, and work-life balance. Synthesizing these activities, expert-driven recommendations specific to high-quality HPM research mentorship include: 1) holistic wellbeing support for mentees, including mentors acknowledging stressors and helping mentees reframe them, 2) promotion of bidirectional work-life balance for mentors and mentees, 3) institutional investment in interdisciplinary networking, and 4) field-wide resources for continuing mentor education and self-development.

HPM research mentorship experts described key activities to improve HPM mentorship and support mentees, spanning multiple levels of action from intrapersonal to broad system change. Launching an independent HPM research career in a climate of limited funding can be supported by mentors who emphasize the joys and challenges of research, model work-life balance, and foster an environment supportive of broad collaboration and continuous improvement and support for mentor training and self-development.