gms | German Medical Science

Question: A two-semester pilot mentoring program for medical undergraduate students (third year and higher) was introduced at the Medical University of Vienna. Faculty members served as mentors to support the professional and personal development of the students. The mentors’ acceptance of the principal settings of this program was evaluated.

Methods: At the end of this mentoring trial, all involved mentors (n=18) were asked to complete questionnaires yielding quantitative and qualitative evaluation data.

Results: The given group size of five mentees was deemed to be adequate by two thirds of the mentors, the rest voted for bigger group. In the course of eight months, a median of 7 (range 4-10) group meetings took place. For 80% of the mentors, this frequency was suitable; the rest was rather in favour of more meetings. The defined mentoring duration of two semesters was rated to be appropriate or rather too short for 40% or 53%, respectively. Students from different years within one group had positive, no or negative effect on the mentoring process, according to 50%, 36% or 14% of the mentors, respectively. The overall appreciation of the program design was evident by excellent evaluation results by the vast majority of mentors (73%), with further 20% declaring major estimation. In addition, more than 90% of mentors reported personal benefits (especially a broadened perspective for students’ issues) from being a mentor.

Conclusion: For successful implementation of a formal institutional mentoring, the wide appreciation of the program design by faculty mentors is essential. Development and continuous adaptation of such programs should therefore not only rely on the evaluation by students but also on the feedback from mentors.