Twelve tips for organising speed mentoring events for healthcare professionals at small or large-scale venues

Abstract

Mentors play a critical role in the development of professionals, influencing their job satisfaction, career aspirations and evolving professional identity. A variety of mentoring models exist, each with distinct benefits and challenges. Speed mentoring, based on the concept of speed dating, provides mentees with opportunities to meet multiple mentors over a short time and pose focussed career development questions. At large-scale events such as the annual AMEE (Association for Medical Education in Europe) meeting, speed mentoring sessions can successfully connect aspiring, novice and mid-career educators with international educational leaders to facilitate transfer of valuable insights for professional growth. For some mentors and mentees, this might spur ongoing communications or even longitudinal relationships. In this paper, we aim to provide strategies for planning and implementing speed mentoring events, combining insights gained from the literature and our experience of organising speed mentoring at the 2019 AMEE meeting in Vienna. These tips will be useful to a variety of professionals planning to organise speed mentoring initiatives.

Keywords:

• Mentoring
• staff development
• general

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge Dr. David Irby and Dr. Patricia O’Sullivan for their contributions on the leadership team of the AMEE mentoring initiative including the speed mentoring workshop as well as their valuable and generous advice to all members of the speed mentoring team.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.

Glossary

Speed mentoring, based on the concept of speed dating (Finkel and Eastwick 2008; Deyo and Deyo 2009), provides mentees with opportunities to meet multiple potential mentors within a short time, pose focussed questions and obtain a variety of perspectives (Cook et al. 2010; Serwint et al. 2014; Robbins et al. 2019).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Subha Ramani

Subha Ramani, MBBS, MMEd, PhD, FAMEE, is Director, Program for Research, Innovations and Scholarship, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; and Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA.

Harish Thampy

Harish Thampy, MBChB, MRCGP, MSc, PFHEA, is a Senior Clinical Lecturer in the Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health at the University of Manchester, UK.

Judy McKimm

Judy McKimm, MBA, MA, BA, PGDip, Cert ED, FAMEE, FAoME, SFHEA, is Professor of Medical Education and Director of Strategic Educational Development at Swansea University Medical School, Wales, UK.

Gary D. Rogers

Gary D. Rogers, MBBS, MGPPsych, PhD, FANZAHPE, FAMEE, PFHEA, is Professor of Medical Education at the Griffith University School of Medicine, Program Lead for Interprofessional and Simulation-Based Learning in the university’s Health Institute for Education and Scholarship (Health IDEAS) and Health faculty Chair of the Griffith Learning and Teaching Academy.

Richard Hays

Richard Hays, MD, PhD, FRACGP, FANZAHPE, FAoME, FAMEE, combines work in rural family Medicine one with academic roles in medical education in both undergraduate and postgraduate programs at James Cook University in Australia, with particular interests in curriculum design, assessment methodology and program evaluation.

Rashmi A. Kusurkar

Rashmi A Kusurkar, MBBS, MD, PhD, FAMEE, is an Associate Professor and Head of Research in Education at the Faculty of Medicine, Vrije University Amsterdam.

Daniel J. Schumacher

Daniel J. Schumacher, MD, MEd, is co-director of the Education Research Unit, at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Centre and Associate Professor of Paediatrics at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine.

Elizabeth K. Kachur

Elizabeth K. Kachur, PhD, FAMEE, is Director of Medical Education Development, Global Consulting, New York, USA.

Alice Fornari

Alice Fornari, EdD, RDN, is Associate Dean, Donald and Barbara Zucker SOM at Hofstra/Northwell and Vice President, Faculty Development at Northwell Health System, USA.

Margaret S. Chisolm

Margaret S. Chisolm, MD, FAMEE, is Vice Chair for Education and Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Helena P. Filipe

Helena P. Filipe, MD, MMEd, AFAMEE, FSACME is a consultant of Ophthalmology practicing in Hospital das Forças Armadas/PL-EMGFA and Hospital SAMS in Lisbon, Portugal. She serves the International Council of Ophthalmology, ICO as chair of the CPD area of focus and is a member of the Directive Board of the College of Ophthalmology.

Teri L. Turner

Teri L. Turner, MD, MPH, MEd is Professor of Paediatrics, Vice Chair of Education and the Martin I. Lorin M.D. Endowed Chair in Medical Education for the Department of Paediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital.

Keith W. Wilson

Keith W. Wilson, BA, MD, PhD, CCFP, FCFP, is Associate Professor of Family Medicine and Chair of Assessment at Dalhousie University, Canada.