Access and Diversity in Academic MentoringAccess and Diversity in Academic Mentoring

To the Editor: In their Commentary, Drs Detsky and Baerlocher¹ considered how to give and receive academic mentoring. We would like to add 2 points to their discussion.

First, mentoring is nice help if you can get it. Although academic medicine depends on mentoring to prepare its next generation of teachers and researchers, many faculty, trainees, and students do not have mentors. A systematic review of mentoring programs estimated that as little as 20% of faculty in some specialties and less than 50% of medical students have a mentor.² Women faculty at our institution participating in focus groups described a climate in which tight finances and increasingly complex regulatory requirements leave little time for nonreimbursable activities like mentoring.³ Therefore, in addition to fostering more productive mentoring relationships, medical schools should ensure that all faculty, trainees, and students who want mentorship actually receive it.

Second, there is differential access to good mentoring. Women in this population report greater difficulty finding mentors and more negative experiences with mentorship, compared with men.² Women and men who are from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups are also less likely to have mentors, and the relatively small number of senior faculty from these groups may be both a barrier to effective mentoring and a factor in the continued difficulty of retaining racially and ethnically diverse physicians in academic medicine.⁴ Furthermore, both overt discrimination and subtle expressions of bias continue to create inhospitable environments for faculty and students who are lesbian, gay, and bisexual.⁵

Medical schools that are committed to developing a diverse faculty and serving the needs of a diverse student body can design programs that counteract assumptions about traditionally marginalized groups, deal effectively with harassment and discrimination, and avoid missed mentorship opportunities. For example, women and minorities may flourish in nontraditional mentoring experiences, such as multilevel mentoring and peer group mentoring.⁴

Thus, we would add the following to the list of advice offered by Detsky and Baerlocher: (1) be an advocate for and participant in mentoring programs, so that mentorship is available to all who want it; (2) do not assume that it is easy for junior faculty, trainees, and students to find good mentors—formal programs may be needed to make the important connections that lead to effective mentoring relationships; and (3) recognize that some members of the academic community face unique barriers to mentorship, and that organized efforts by large-spirited mentors and forward-thinking institutions will be needed to pull down those barriers.