“I would like to explain the importance of mentoring by using a metaphor of something that all of you in this room know about: a strain of DNA”, said Dr. Johnna Frierson, Assistant Dean for Graduate and Postdoctoral Diversity and Inclusion at the School of Medicine, who moderated the Research Town Hall “Why Mentors Matter. How to Build Responsible Mentoring at Duke”. “Like DNA” – Frierson explained – “a complex molecule containing instructions and necessary information to build and maintain an organism, through mentoring we should strive to pass along essential knowledge, understanding, skills and behaviors to help trainees develop as competent scientists. We can do this by serving as advisors, supporters, models of identity, experts, tutors and sponsors – which are roles that mentors fulfill.” Dr. Frierson pointed out that this long list of mentoring roles do not have to be fulfilled by the same person. She spoke about mentoring networks that trainees need to develop in order to achieve their maximum potential.
To further emphasize how much of a difference mentors can make in the lives and careers of their mentees, Dr. Frierson used the example of her own career – telling us how she was nurtured by her mentor, Dr. Terence Dermody at Vanderbilt University. Also, she brought a wealth of scientific evidence to make her case. She showed that effective mentoring is associated with positive outcomes, such as:
- higher persistence in the science pipeline (Aschbacher et al. 2010; Estrada et al. 2011; Chemers et al. 2011; Hazari et al. 2010; Syed et al. in press)increased commitment to science career among all levels of students (Chemers et al. 2011) ;
- higher academic performance, attendance and satisfaction (Linnehan, 2001; Tenenbaum, Crosby, & Gliner, 2001);
- strong sense of belonging which led to higher publication rates, particularly among women and unrepresented minorities STEM trainees (Fisher, 2019);
- measurable impact on PhD skills development (Feldon, 2019).
The opportunity to positively impact mentees’ engagement and success in research is a compelling incentive for all scientists to learn how to engage in fruitful and healthy mentoring relationships and overcome common challenges – of which lack of transparency, ill-defined goals, lack of structure and poor communication are ranked at the top.
Honest communication and structured meetings are key
What one word best describes your mentoring relationship? – the panelists, three distinguished researchers recognized for their best mentoring practices and their respective three mentees) were asked. “The key word is communication”, said Jane Leer, a joint degree doctoral student in public policy and social psychology. She was invited to join the event by her mentor, Dr. Anna Gassman-Pines, Associate Professor in the Sanford School of Public Policy and Associate Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience. A recipient of the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Mentoring Award, Dr. Gassman-Pines emphasized the art of communication for effective mentoring cultivated through structured, predictable and scheduled meetings where trainees are seen as “whole human beings” and not only as researchers: “Meetings provide a useful safety net, a sense of success and allow for peer mentoring because senior students have a space to share their own experiences”.
For mentee Brandi Johnson-Weaver, PhD and her mentor, Dr. Herman Staats, Professor of Patholoy and recipient of the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Mentoring in the School of Medicine, the key word is “honesty”. “Good mentoring starts with honest communication about expectations and about ourselves”, Dr. Johnson-Weaver said. In their particular case, the recipe for success combined both structured individual meetings and lab meetings, where “my role is to share my experiences and things that I learned” (Dr. Staats said), along with mutual accountability, availability and respect. “Accountability starts with being accountable to yourself first: identify what you want to be and what reputation you would like to have”, said Dr. Johnson-Weaver. “Mutual respect” is the key word for Dr. Geeta Swamy, Associate Vice President for Research and Vice Dean for Scientific Integrity at the School of Medicine. Mentor Geeta Swamy, MD and mentee Sarahn Wheeler, MD, Assistant Professor at the School of Medicine, spoke about mentoring from clinician perspectives. Both are obstetricians passionate about health disparities. In developing their mentoring roles, they both created a space where accountability and honest communication are fostered through regular meetings which “wherever happen and however happen, by Webex, phone or in person, they always happen”, as Dr. Swamy emphasized. Key for successful meetings is “agenda setting”, added Dr. Wheeler: “agendas are working documents, the back bone of what you want to accomplish”; For her, the key word was always “momentum” – explained as the opportunity to jump into new projects to “lean into the fire, go for it”, that was always encouraged by Geeta whom she described as “a master delegator” and who always “treated her as an adult”.
Role transitions can lead to mentor – mentee break-up
Among challenges, the speakers identified the difficulty of transitioning from one role to another, which impacts the mentoring relationship. “It was hard to accept what Herman saw in me. It is called the impostor syndrome”, said Dr. Johnson-Weaver, who transitioned from doctoral student to lab manager in the same lab. Transitions can be difficult when they happen in the same space – added Dr. Swamy – and they often lead to “mentor-mentee break-ups” even though they should only “be breaking away”. Audience participants named other challenges, such as conveying constructive feedback to the mentor from a low power position. “You have to be a good listener, to hear it and digest it”, (said Dr. Swamy) and to “create a space where you can agree and disagree” (as Dr. Wheeler pointed out); a space which Dr. Swamy calls “psychological safety”, paraphrasing a subtitle of the book The Fearless Organization (by Amy Edmondson, 2019, Harvard Business School). “Good mentors are those who are able to give something up, a part of themselves, beyond just time, for the benefit of training the next generation”, Swamy concluded. “An investment with not so obvious returns, but which serves a mission which I find very fulfilling”, said Dr. Gassman-Pines.
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