Randomized controlled trial of a group peer mentoring model for U.S. academic medicine research faculty

Graduate Dental Hygiene Education Faculty Perceptions Regarding Mentoring Practices

PURPOSE

Graduate dental hygiene (DH) faculty roles may include teaching, research development, scholarly writing, supervising graduate teaching assistants, and advanced clinical training. Faculty frequently enter these roles without clear expectations and awareness of programmatic policies and graduate student needs. This study explored the perceptions of mentoring for faculty engaged in teaching, research, supervision, and committees in graduate DH programs.

METHODS

An 18-item survey was developed, pilot-tested, and distributed using Qualtrics to US graduate DH program directors (n = 14). Directors were requested to complete and forward to their program's faculty engaged in graduate roles. Survey items examined demographics, mentor/mentee experiences, opportunities, and perceptions regarding graduate mentoring resources and needs.

RESULTS

Twenty-four surveys were completed. Respondents were asked to identify all of the roles they currently have in the graduate programs; the most common responses included program director (n = 7, 29.2%), course director (n = 16, 66.7%), and thesis/non-thesis committee chair (n = 16, 66.7%) or committee member (n = 17, 70.8%). Fifty-eight percent (n = 14) reported receiving mentoring specific to their graduate DH education roles, with 45.8% (n = 11) stating they sought colleagues to mentor them in teaching and research capacities. Inconsistencies existed in identifying mentoring opportunities, types of mentoring opportunities, and available resources. Respondents agreed with the necessity of mentoring, with the greatest needs in research methods and design (n = 16, 66.7%), scientific writing (n = 17, 70.8%), and providing effective feedback (n = 16, 66.7%). Successful mentoring capacities aligned with literature findings and cited requisite characteristics of trustworthiness, confidentiality, and a supportive culture. Notable challenges included financial support, competing responsibilities, insufficient time, and a shortage of experienced faculty to serve as influential mentors.

CONCLUSIONS

Preparing graduate faculty is critical to sustaining educational vitality and preparing future academicians, researchers, and professional leaders. Mentoring graduate-level educators is essential to amplify their effectiveness in these roles and increase student success.

Implementation and evaluation of a group peer mentoring and leadership development program for research faculty in academic medicine

Introduction

Research faculty often experience poor mentoring, low vitality, and burnout. We report on our logic model inputs, activities, measurable outcomes, and impact of a novel mentoring intervention for biomedical research faculty: the C-Change Mentoring & Leadership Institute. We present a) a detailed description of the curriculum and process, b) evaluation of the program's mentoring effectiveness from the perspective of participants, and c) documentation of mentoring correlated with key positive outcomes.

Methods

A yearlong facilitated group peer mentoring program that convened quarterly in person was conducted twice (2020-2022) as part of an NIH-funded randomized controlled study. The culture change intervention aimed to increase faculty vitality, career advancement, and cross-cultural competence through structured career planning and learning of skills essential for advancement and leadership in academic medicine. Participants were 40 midcareer MD and PhD research faculty, half women, and half underrepresented by race or ethnicity from 27 US medical schools.

Results

Participants highly rated their mentoring received at the Institute. Extent of effective mentoring experienced correlated strongly with the measurable outcomes of enhanced vitality, self-efficacy in career advancement, research and work-life integration, feelings of inclusion in the program, valuing diversity, and skills for addressing inequity.

Conclusions

The mentoring model fully included men and women and historically underrepresented persons in medicine and minimized problems of power, gender, race, and ethnicity discordance. The intervention successfully addressed the urgencies of sustaining faculty vitality, developing faculty careers, facilitating cross-cultural engagement and inclusion, and contributing to cultivating cultures of inclusive excellence in academic medicine.

Pandemic Impact on Research Faculty in Academic Medicine: A Mixed Method Study

Introduction

This mixed-method study sought to elucidate the impact of COVID-19 on the professional environments and career trajectories of midcareer research faculty in U.S. medical schools.

Methods

Participants were 40 midcareer medical school faculty enrolled in the Brandeis University C-Change Mentoring and Leadership Institute, a group peer mentoring career development course being tested in a National Institutes of Health-funded randomized controlled trial.

Results

We observed a gender disparity in both the quantitative and qualitative data, with women faculty describing COVID-19 more negatively impacting their career trajectory. This negative impact was independent of having children in the home. Participants largely reported no change in their commitment to conducting research or interest in applying for research funding. A total of 54% of faculty reported no effect of the pandemic on their relationships with colleagues (n = 21) and 33% reported a negative effect (n = 13). A trend emerged when examining the data by degree, however, with PhD faculty about twice as likely as physicians to report a negative effect of the pandemic on their relationship with colleagues (47% n = 9 vs. 20% n = 4, respectively). The ordinal test on the 5-point scale approached statistical significance but did not meet the standard 0.05 cut-off (p value = 0.06; Z-value = -1.86).

Conclusions

While faculty initially reported some positive outcomes of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in their own experiences in April 2020, their experiences 1 year later reflected negative impacts of the pandemic on career trajectory, especially for women, and on relationships with colleagues, with a higher intensity signal for PhD scientists.

Facilitated Peer Group Mentoring for Underrepresented Biomedical Researchers: Facilitators' Experiences and Implications for Dissemination of a Curriculum

Peer group mentoring facilitated by senior faculty represents an effective approach. However, for underrepresented biomedical researchers, access to senior faculty from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups is limited. We explored motivations, benefits, and challenges for facilitators enrolled to deploy an intervention in the context of a randomized controlled trial that tested two peer group mentoring strategies for underrepresented early career researchers. Peer group sessions were co-facilitated by two senior underrepresented faculty. Thirty-six faculty were recruited as facilitators over four years. The facilitators' primary motivation was advancing the diversity of the workforce, the primary benefit was satisfaction from helping underrepresented researchers, and the primary challenge was time. Understanding motivations, benefits, and challenges of facilitators informs efforts in recruiting and retaining facilitators and disseminating this curriculum and others like it, to the broader community.

Psychological Safety: Creating a Transformative Culture in a Faculty Group Peer-Mentoring Intervention

We investigated psychological safety (PS) in a randomized controlled study of a group peer mentoring intervention. Forty mid-career academic medicine research faculty participated in the year-long C-Change Mentoring & Leadership Institute, completing a survey after the first session and post-intervention. Qualitative data included ethnographic observations, interviews, and participant writings. A codebook thematic analysis used PS as one sensitizing concept. PS mean scores increased from 5.6 at baseline to 6.1 (range 1-7) post-intervention (t=3.03, p=.005, mean difference=0.48, 95% CI=0.33, 0.81). In qualitative analysis, PS resulted from intervention structure, storytelling/listening curriculum, and skilled facilitation, fostering norms that enabled sharing, repaired trust, and nurtured belonging. PS enabled faculty to be authentic, vulnerable, and responsive, and to develop social bonds within a peer community.

Group peer mentoring is effective for different demographic groups of biomedical research faculty: A controlled trial

INTRODUCTION

Improved mentoring of midcareer researchers in medical schools has been identified as an important potential avenue for addressing low vitality and high burnout rates in faculty, and the scarcity of both underrepresented minority (URM) faculty and women in biomedical research. To address the need for widescale effective mentoring, we sought to determine whether a group peer mentoring intervention (C-Change Mentoring and Leadership Institute) for early midcareer research faculty was effective for different demographic groups in a controlled trial.

METHODS AND MATERIALS

Thirty-five diverse early midcareer faculty and 70 propensity-matched (PM) control subjects matched to intervention subjects on a) study inclusion criteria; b) gender, race, and ethnicity, degree, rank, years of experience, publications, grants; and c) pretest survey outcome variables, participated in the intervention. The C-Change Participant Survey assessed vitality, self-efficacy in career advancement, research success, mentoring others, valuing diversity, cognitive empathy, and anti-sexism/anti-racism skills at pretest and intervention completion. Analysis using multiple regression models included outcome pretest values and indicator variables for intervention, gender, URM status, and MD vs. PhD. Hypotheses regarding differential effectiveness of the intervention by demographic group were tested by including cross-product terms between the demographic indicator variables and the intervention indicator. Missing data were addressed using chained equations to create 100 data sets.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The intervention participants had significantly higher (favorable) scores than PM controls for: self-assessed change in vitality; self-efficacy for career advancement, research, and mentoring others; cognitive empathy; and anti-sexism/racism skills. The benefits of the intervention were nearly identical across: gender, URM vs non-URM faculty, and degree MD/PhD, except vitality significantly increased for non-URM subjects, and not for URM faculty. Self-assessed change in vitality increased for URM and non-URM.

CONCLUSION

The intervention worked successfully for enhancing vitality, self-efficacy and cross-cultural engagement across different demographic groups of biomedical research faculty.