Patients benefit from mentoring students in an interprofessional health mentors program: A contextual-developmental analysis

Abstract

Purpose

Mentorship programs in health professional education are often characterized as a mutually beneficial relationship between mentor and mentee, but little is known about benefits for mentors. Mentors can be health professionals, academic faculty, other students (peers), and patients (health mentors). We studied the benefits that health mentors (people with chronic health conditions or disabilities, or a caregiver) get from mentoring students, and the contextual factors that contribute to, or explain these benefits.

Methods

We surveyed 72 health mentors who had mentored between one and eight cohorts of students from different health professions in the health mentors program at the University of British Columbia. Using a contextual-developmental framework of mentorship, we analyzed mentors’ responses to open-ended questions about how they benefit from the program.

Results

Benefits fit into three categories: generativity (guiding the next generation), transformation (personal growth and reflection), and ‘career’ development (new activities resulting from increased self-efficacy). Contextual factors that contributed to benefits included the non-clinical setting, informality of meetings and reciprocal learning, and feeling valued by the program and students.

Conclusions

Health mentors perceive benefits in passing on their lived experiences to students, leading to personal growth and new activities. Their perspectives offer unique insights into the workings of effective mentorship relationships. There is much to be learned about how benefits of mentoring are linked to program design.

Keywords:

• Mentoring
• multiprofessional
• health professional education
• health mentors
• patient involvement

Disclosure statement

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

Glossary

Health Mentors: Are people with chronic health conditions or disabilities, or caregivers, who mentor health professional students in longitudinal programs, often interprofessional, designed to help students learn about collaborative patient-centered practice.

(1) Collins L, Arenson C, Jerpbak C, Kane P, Dressel R, Antony R. 2011. Transforming chronic illness care education: a longitudinal interprofessional mentorship curriculum. J Interprof Care. 25:228–230. (2) Doucet S, Andrews C, Godden-Webster AL, Lauckner H, Nasser S. 2012. The Dalhousie Health Mentors Program: introducing students to collaborative patient/client-centered practice. J Interprof Care. 26(4):336–338. (3) Towle A, Brown H, Kerston RP, Hofley C, Lyons H, Walsh C. 2014. The expert patient as teacher: an interprofessional health mentors programme. Clin Teach. 11:301–306.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Cathy C. Kline

Cathy C. Kline, MA, is the research coordinator for Patient and Community Partnership for Education, Office of UBC Health, University of British Columbia. She manages research and development initiatives that promote patient and public involvement in health professional education and has built a large network of patient educators and community organizations.

Paula Riganti

Paula Riganti, MD, MSc, is a family physician and has a Masters in Medical Education from Cardiff University. She is an adjunct professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia. Her research interests include shared decision-making and decision aids, medical education, curriculum development, and patient involvement in education and healthcare.

Ashley Moller-Hansen

Ashley Moller-Hansen, BHSc, has recently completed a Bachelor of Health Sciences degree at Queen’s University. She has dual research interests in clinical medical genetics and patient involvement in medical education. Motivated by her own experiences in the healthcare system, Ashley has been a UBC Health Mentor for four years.

William Godolphin

William Godolphin, PhD, is Professor Emeritus, Pathology & Laboratory Medicine and Co-director, Patient & Community Partnership for Education, UBC Health, University of British Columbia. He has publications ranging across lipoproteins, breast cancer, toxicology, automation & robotics and medical education. For nearly three decades, with Angela Towle, he has devised educational interventions intended to engage patients in informed and shared decision making.

Angela Towle

Angela Towle, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine, and Senior Scholar in the Centre for Health Education Scholarship, University of British Columbia. She is Co-Director with William Godolphin of Patient & Community Partnership for Education, Office of UBC Health, a unit with a research and development focus on patient/client involvement in health professional education.