Mentorship in medicine is a Complex opportunity

Abstract

Mentorship is now recognized as essential to the personal and professional development of physicians. Over the past decade, it has become a common theme in medical education literature, and through this our understanding of mentorship has evolved. Despite this progress, we believe that the prevailing reductionist view of mentorship is oversimplified and may hinder further advances in this space. Instead, we propose that mentorship be viewed through the lens of complexity theory, positioning it as a prototypical complex adaptive system. This shift in perspective will inform our mentorship interventions and evaluations, and can avoid the disappointment that invariably follows when we apply a simple approach to a complex situation.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Lea Harper

Lea Harper, MD, Director of Research and Evaluation, Postgraduate Medical Education, University of Calgary, Canada.

Christopher A. Hergott

Christopher A. Hergott, MD, Adult Respirology Program Director, University of Calgary, Canada.

Sylvain Coderre

Sylvain Coderre, MD, Director of Teaching Innovations, Undergraduate Medical Education, University of Calgary, Canada.

Kenna Kelly-Turner

Kenna Kelly-Turner, MA, Senior Program Development Specialist, Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of Calgary, Canada.

Melinda Davis

Melinda Davis, BMed FANZCA, Associate Dean, Postgraduate Medical Education, University of Calgary, Canada.

Kevin McLaughlin

Kevin McLaughlin, MD, Director of Research, Undergraduate Medical Education, University of Calgary, Canada.