Open AccessThe Changing Faces of Mentorship: Application of a Developmental Network Framework in a Health Services Research Career Development Program
Author(s) -
Halvorson Max A.,
Finney John W.,
Bi Xiaoyu,
Maisel Natalya C.,
Hayashi Ko P.,
Weitlauf Julie C.,
Cronkite Ruth C.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
clinical and translational science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.303
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1752-8062
pISSN - 1752-8054
DOI - 10.1111/cts.12355
Subject(s) - mentorship , career development , medical education , medicine , psychology
Historically, mentorship has been conceived of as a dyadic relationship between a senior mentor and an early‐career investigator. Models involving multiple mentors have gained favor in recent years, but empirical research on multiple‐mentor models has been lacking. The current work aims to fill this gap by describing a long‐standing health services research mentoring program at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs which has adopted a network‐based approach to mentoring. As part of a broader project, we surveyed VA HSR&D Career Development Awardees who received an award between 2000 and 2012. In total, 133 awardees participated (84%). Awardees reported on the structure of mentoring relationships with their two most influential mentors. Awardees were mentored by teams consisting of one to five mentors ( M = 2.7 mentors). Most often, one mentor served as primary mentor while one or more mentors played a supporting role. In most cases, an awardee‘s primary mentor was co‐located with the awardee, with fewer secondary mentors co‐located. More recently funded CDAs had more mentors and were less likely to be co‐located with secondary mentors. The VA HSR&D CDA program incorporates current thinking about Developmental Network models of mentorship into a comprehensive program providing a rich mentorship experience for its awardees.