xRead - Mentorship in Otolaryngology Trainees (March 2026)

15314995, 2013, 8, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/lary.24043 by Lyndy Wilcox , Wiley Online Library on [14/12/2025]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License

TABLE II. Frequency of Formal Meetings as Reported by Mentor versus Mentee.

Amount Reported byMentor

Amount Reported byMentee

Frequency of Meetings

Twice a month

16%

16%

Once a month

9%

9%

Every 3 months

20%

23%

Twice a year

13%

42%

“Other”

42%

9%

Mentees and mentors were asked to identify spe cific areas in which their mentorship is provided (Table III). They were given six options and allowed to choose all that applied: career planning, clinical judgment, research, work-life balance, professionalism, and emo tional well-being. “Career planning” was most com monly selected by both groups (90% mentor, 81% mentee). However, there was a disagreement in mentor ship provided in “clinical judgment,” with a signifi cantly larger number of mentors reporting mentorship in this area ( P 5 0.003) when compared to mentee responses. Fifty-six percent of mentors had not received any formal training on how to provide mentorship. On the mentoring topics of research, providing feedback, clinical judgment, professionalism, career planning, emotional well-being, and work-life balance, a range of only 4% to 31% of mentors had training. Fifty-six percent agreed with the statement that formal training in providing mentorship would make them more effective mentors (Fig. 1.). Mentors identified the top three areas in which training would most benefit their skills as career planning, providing feedback, and emotional well-being (Table IV). Eighty-eight percent of trainees strongly agreed that their mentor answers their questions satisfactorily, and 70% agreed that their contributions and achieve ment are appropriately acknowledged by their mentors (Table V). Sixty-five percent of faculty was confident that they are effective mentors, and 88% agreed that their mentor ship plays an important role in the personal and career development of their mentee.

Fig. 1. Response distribution to the statement, “I would be a more effective mentor with formal training in how to provide mentorship.”

A subanalysis conducted to see whether there was a significant difference in mentee responses between JHU, MCW, and UNC revealed no significant difference for any question by institution ( P > 0.15). A similar test was done for mentor responses between all three institutions; again, no significant differences were found ( P > 0.20). While there are not statistically significant differences noted between programs, there were differences in responses between programs as well as response rate. An additional analysis was conducted to see whether choosing a mentor had any effect on the quality of mentorship, as 58% of mentees chose their mentor while 42% were assigned mentors. Mentor selection ver sus assignment had no significant impact on mentee responses ( P > 0.15). DISCUSSION Formal mentorship programs beginning to be imple mented in training programs, and, while a greater amount of studies on the topic is being conducted, there is still a need for further investigation. 4–7 With an aim to advance research on formal mentorship programs, the goal of this study was to assess three existing

TABLE IV. Ranking Order of Areas in Which Mentors Feel Formal Training Would Most Benefit.

TABLE III. Areas of Mentoring as Reported by Mentors versus Mentees.

Proportion of Mentor’s Selection

Proportion of Mentee’s Selection

Areas of Mentoring

P value

Career planning

90%

81% 0.197

Research

78%

63% 0.093

Clinical judgment

86% 63%

58% 0.003 56% 0.303

Work-life balance

Professionalism

65%

53% 0.174

Emotional well-being

43%

42% 0.546

Laryngoscope 123: August 2013

Lin et al.: Otolaryngology Training Mentorship

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