Mentoring strategies to support diversity in research-focused junior faculty: A scoping review

Will they always be living the Sisyphus punishment? The triple whammy for racialized women: a qualitative investigation of primary care researchers in Canada

Background

Existing literature overlooks the role of gender and race on research productivity, particularly in the context of primary care research. This study examines how gender and race influence the research productivity of primary care researchers in Canada, addressing a gap in existing literature.

Methods

Qualitative, descriptive methods were used, involving 60-min interviews with 23 Canadian primary care researchers. 13 participants were female (57%) and 10 participants (43%) were male. Fourteen participants were White (non-racialized; 61%), 8 were racialized (35%) and 1 did not comment on race (4%). Reflexive thematic analysis captured participant perceptions of factors influencing research productivity, including individual, professional, institutional, and systemic aspects.

Findings

Systemic bias and institutional culture, including racism, sexism, and unconscious biases against racialized women, emerge as key barriers to research productivity. The parenting life stage further compounds these biases. Barriers include lack of representation in faculty roles, toxic work environments, research productivity metrics, and exclusion by colleagues. Participants indicated that institutional reforms and systemic interventions are needed to foster a diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment. Strategies include recruiting equity-focused leaders, increasing representation of racialized female faculty, diversity training, mentorship programs, providing meaningful support, flexible work arrangements, and protected research time. Sponsors can offer more targeted grants for female and racialized researchers. Adjusting metrics for gender, race, parenthood, and collaborative metrics is proposed to enhance diversity and inclusion among researchers.

Interpretation

This study underscores the importance of addressing systemic bias at institutional and systemic levels to create a fair and supportive environment for primary care researchers. A multitude of strategies are needed including increasing representation of racialized female faculty, creating supportive and psychologically safe work environments, and public reporting of data on faculty composition for accreditation and funding decisions. Together, these strategies can alleviate the triple whammy and free these researchers from the Sisyphus Punishment - the absurdity of being asked to climb a hill while pushing a boulder with no hope of reaching the top.

Funding

College of Family Physicians of Canada.

Increasing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Health and Health Services Research Workforce: A Systematic Scoping Review

Health and health services research institutions seek to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) to overcome structural bias. The objective of this review is to identify, characterize, and evaluate programs aimed to strengthen DEI in the health and health services research workforces. We conducted a systematic scoping review of literature of 2012-2022 North American peer-reviewed empirical studies in PubMed and Embase using the Arksey and O'Malley approach. This review identified 62 programs that varied in focus, characteristics, and outcomes. Programs focused on supporting a spectrum of underrepresented groups based on race/ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability status, and socioeconomic status. The majority of programs targeted faculty/investigators, compared to other workforce roles. Most programs were 1 year in length or less. The practices employed within programs included skills building, mentoring, and facilitating the development of social networks. To support program infrastructure, key strategies included supportive leadership, inclusive climate, resource allocation, and community engagement. Most programs evaluated success based on shorter-term metrics such as the number of grants submitted and manuscripts published. Relatively few programs collected long-term outcomes on workforce pathway outcomes including hiring, promotion, and retention. This systematic scoping review outlined prevalent practices to advance DEI in the health and health services research field. As DEI programs proliferate, more work is needed by research universities, institutes, and funders to realign institutional culture and structures, expand resources, advance measurement, and increase opportunities for underrepresented groups at every career stage.

Mentorship Interventions in Postgraduate Medical and STEM Settings: A Scoping Review

BACKGROUND

Mentorship is critical to success in postgraduate science, technology, engineering, math, and medicine (STEMM) settings. As such, the purpose of this study is to comprehensively explore the state of mentorship interventions in postgraduate STEMM settings to identify novel practices and future research directions. The selection criteria for reviewed articles included: 1) published between 2002 and 2022, 2) peer-reviewed, 3) in English, 4) postgraduate mentees, 5) a program where mentorship is a significant, explicit focus, and 6) a description of mentee outcomes related to the mentorship intervention. Overall, 2583 articles were screened, and 109 articles were reviewed.

RESULTS

Most postgraduate STEMM mentorship intervention studies lack strong evidence to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention, with only 5.5% of articles designed as randomized controlled trials. Most mentorship interventions (45.6%) were created for faculty, and few (4%) were for postdoctoral researchers. Also, only 18.8% of interventions focused on underrepresented groups in STEMM. Most interventions (53.7%) prescribed a dyadic structure, and there was more mentorship training for mentors than mentees.

CONCLUSION

Overall, these findings identify gaps in mentorship interventions and provide step-by-step guidance for future interventions, including a consideration for underrepresented groups and postdoctoral scholars, robust mentorship training, and more randomized controlled trials.

Mentoring as a complex adaptive system - a systematic scoping review of prevailing mentoring theories in medical education

BACKGROUND

Effective mentorship is an important component of medical education with benefits to all stakeholders. In recent years, conceptualization of mentorship has gone beyond the traditional dyadic experienced mentor-novice mentee relationship to include group and peer mentoring. Existing theories of mentorship do not recognize mentoring's personalized, evolving, goal-driven, and context-specific nature. Evidencing the limitations of traditional cause-and-effect concepts, the purpose of this review was to systematically search the literature to determine if mentoring can be viewed as a complex adaptive system (CAS).

METHODS

A systematic scoping review using Krishna's Systematic Evidence-Based Approach was employed to study medical student and resident accounts of mentoring and CAS in general internal medicine and related subspecialties in articles published between 1 January 2000 and 31 December 2023 in PubMed, Embase, PsycINFO, ERIC, Google Scholar, and Scopus databases. The included articles underwent thematic and content analysis, with the themes identified and combined to create domains, which framed the discussion.

RESULTS

Of 5,704 abstracts reviewed, 134 full-text articles were evaluated, and 216 articles were included. The domains described how mentoring relationships and mentoring approaches embody characteristics of CAS and that mentorship often behaves as a community of practice (CoP). Mentoring's CAS-like features are displayed through CoPs, with distinct boundaries, a spiral mentoring trajectory, and longitudinal mentoring support and assessment processes.

CONCLUSION

Recognizing mentorship as a CAS demands the rethinking of the design, support, assessment, and oversight of mentorship and the role of mentors. Further study is required to better assess the mentoring process and to provide optimal training and support to mentors.

The power of junior faculty mentoring committees

Junior faculty mentoring committees have important roles in ensuring that faculty thrive and adjust to their new positions and institutions. Here, we describe the purpose, structure, and benefits of junior faculty mentoring committees, which can be a powerful tool for early-career academic investigators in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medical (STEMM) fields. There is a paucity of information about what mentoring committees are, how to use them effectively, what areas they should evaluate, and how they can most successfully help junior faculty progress in their careers. This work offers guidance for both junior faculty mentees and mentoring committee members on how to best structure and utilize mentoring committees to promote junior faculty success. A better understanding of the intricacies of the mentoring committee will allow junior faculty members to self-advocate and will equip committee mentors with tools to ensure that junior faculty are successful in thriving in academia.

Internal Consistency and Application of a Mentee Survey to Assess Mentor Competencies in an Academic Medical Center across Demographic Groups

The National Academies of Science stresses the importance of research mentoring. We assessed the internal consistency and application of a novel 33 item mentor evaluation survey and explored differences across subgroups. The survey was administered annually to mentees. The response rate was 17.8% for a sample of 710 respondents. The survey exhibited strong internal validity with Cronbach Alpha > 0.89 for each subscale. Overall scores across the three domains were high. Basic Science trainees scored their mentor significantly lower than those in Translational or Clinical Science across domains (0.11-0.25 points). Underrepresented Racial Ethnic Groups (UREG) trainee scores were significantly lower in academic guidance and personal communication. Women had lower scores in 4 out of 5 domains. The survey is a modified instrument to assess mentee experience, although further validation against mentee outcomes is needed.

An ecosystem approach to mentoring research faculty in schools of nursing: The pacific northwest interdependence mentoring model

BACKGROUND

Mentoring can facilitate faculty career development and retention. Given ongoing challenges in academic nursing (e.g., shrinking number of experienced mentors), it is necessary to revisit and improve upon existing mentoring models and practices to support current and future nurse researchers.

PURPOSE

To describe the development of a new faculty-to-faculty research mentoring model.

METHODS

Construction of a model describing mentoring needed by research-focused nurse faculty based on analysis of the literature alongside the authors' personal experiences.

FINDINGS

The Pacific Northwest Interdependence Mentoring Model (PIMM) describes academic nursing as an ecosystem that fosters caring, trust, solidarity, equity, openness, and interdependent relationships among research faculty, administration, institutions, and funding sources.

DISCUSSION

Although mentoring environments differ in unique strengths, weaknesses, mission, culture, and values, the PIMM's approach could be applicable for many schools of nursing and beyond to support the growth of the nursing discipline.