gms | German Medical Science

Research in Medical Education – Chances and Challenges International Conference

20.05. - 22.05.2009, Heidelberg

Mentoring medical students: A novel student-centered program yields promising evaluation results

Meeting Abstract

  • corresponding author presenting/speaker Konstantinos Dimitriadis - Klinikum der Universität München, Medizinische Klinik Innenstadt, München, Germany
  • author presenting/speaker Philip von der Borch - Klinikum der Universität München, Medizinische Klinik Innenstadt, München, Germany
  • author Sylvère Störmann - Klinikum der Universität München, Medizinische Klinik Innenstadt, München, Germany
  • author Felix Meinel - Klinikum der Universität München, Medizinische Klinik Innenstadt, München, Germany
  • author Martin Reincke - Klinikum der Universität München, Medizinische Klinik Innenstadt, München, Germany
  • author Martin R. Fischer - Private Universität Witten/Herdecke, Institut für Didaktik und Bildungsforschung im Gesundheitswesen (IDBG), Witten, Germany

Research in Medical Education - Chances and Challenges 2009. Heidelberg, 20.-22.05.2009. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2009. Doc09rmeD3

doi: 10.3205/09rme18, urn:nbn:de:0183-09rme182

Published: May 5, 2009

© 2009 Dimitriadis et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.en). You are free: to Share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work, provided the original author and source are credited.


Outline

Abstract

Background: Mentoring is a key factor for career success. Characteristics for the implementation of broadly accepted mentoring programs in medical education need to be clarified. We assessed the demand for mentoring among medical students at the medical faculty of LMU Munich. In response, a mentoring program based on a novel, student-centered concept was established that integrates a peer society-based model with individual mentoring by faculty members. We present this innovative mentoring concept and evaluation data on the pilot phase of the actual program.

Methods: To assess the need for mentoring, we conducted a survey among all medical students at our faculty. To further specify the concept of our mentoring program we initiated and evaluated four focus groups, two with 11 students each and two with 10 physicians each and interviews with 23 department directors. All potential mentees for individual mentoring responded to a survey on their expectations (n=505). To assess whether the program met its goals to support students’ professional development, we established a 2-step evaluation of the actual program with 130 mentees in the pilot during summer semester 2008: First, mentors and mentees were asked to give feedback after every meeting (n=297, free-text questions). Second, we performed a detailed evaluation at the end of the semester. By January 2009, 1.379 students and physicians are organized in mentoring societies and 291 individual mentor-student relationships have formed.

Results: Needs assessment revealed that 83% of medical students expressed overall satisfaction with the teaching at LMU. However, only 36.5% stated to be content with how the faculty supports their professional development and 86% of students voiced a desire for more personal support. MD research thesis (56.6%) and final year electives (54.9%) were most relevant topics in need for improvement. In the pilot semester 81.0% of mentees met their mentors at least once, 28.6% twice or more. The topics primarily discussed were experiences abroad (71%) and career planning (70%). The majority of mentees stated that mentors facilitated their career planning (85.2%) and MD research thesis (79.3%) most. All mentors believe to have helped their mentees or made a difference for their mentees’ careers (75%). 95.2% of mentees kept their mentors; 7.1% selected a new one. No mentee quit the program. Evaluation of peer-mentoring in societies for the preclinical years has started in October 2008. By January 2009, 1.380 students and faculty are organized in mentoring societies and 292 individual mentor-student relationships have formed.

Conclusions: Based on the results of our needs assessment we developed a novel mentoring program consisting of peer mentoring for first- and second-year students and one-to-one mentoring for students in the clinical years with a high level of acceptance in its pilot phase.