QUALITY MENTORSHIP THROUGH STFM

The Minority and Multicultural Health (MMH) and Latino Faculty (LF) Collaboratives received a Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM) Foundation Project Fund grant to develop a faculty mentorship infrastructure for STFM in 2015, ending December 2017. The long-term goals of this project are to (1) enhance mentorship opportunities of excellence for STFM members, (2) improve resiliency and retention of underrepresented in medicine minority family medicine faculty, and (3) increase educational and leadership diversity for the STFM. The MMH and LF Collaboratives share many common goals: increasing the number of URM students going into family medicine; increasing the recruitment, retention, and development of URM faculty; and, improving health equity by addressing health disparities. Their missions are in line with the STFM mission to improve health through a community of teachers and scholars, and the Quadruple Aim for better quality, better health, and better value by strengthening family medicine leadership and the quality and resilience of a diverse workforce.

Traversing the academic terrain successfully can be challenging. Mentorship provides important structure, content, and tools to make the difference between success and mediocrity for faculty as well may impact resiliency and attrition. Limitations in mentorship can result from lack of mentors in an individual’s local environment, and lack of awareness of how to choose a mentor and of the different characteristics of a mentoring relationship (eg, distance mentoring, micro-mentoring, diversity in mentoring-gender, specialty, race/ethnicity). Quality Mentorship Through STFM provided the opportunity to bridge a gap in mentorship needs for faculty in family medicine.

The skills, attitudes, and behaviors addressed by this program help to address the unique needs of URM faculty and benefit non-URM faculty. As the family physician workforce thrives, these benefits are passed on to residents, students, patients, and communities we serve.

The design of the Quality Mentorship Through STFM program used a mixed-methods approach to obtain data to inform the development, structure, and evaluation of the program. Using a community-engaged approach, members of several STFM interest groups were surveyed anonymously. Additionally, a focus group and literature review was conducted. Mentors and mentees were recruited through STFM Collaboratives and by word of mouth, then paired based on interests and geography. Six mentees were accepted into the program. Each mentee had to demonstrate commitment and institutional support for participation in the 18-month program. The program kick-off occurred during an STFM annual pre-conference workshop where the mentees, mentors, and other registered participants interested in mentoring under-represented minority faculty learned about mentoring techniques, unique needs or URM faculty, racism and bias, resilience, and resilience techniques. An individual development plan was introduced as well as mentorship tools to facilitate SMART goal setting, communication, ongoing mentorship meetings, and demonstration of resilience techniques and practice.

Thus far, there is high participant satisfaction with mentees benefiting from increased scholarly productivity, promotions, leadership development, and connectivity.

Brainstorming with STFM leadership explored how broader implementation of the program through STFM. Next steps include project evaluation, toolkit publication, and dissemination through manuscript publication.

• © 2017 Annals of Family Medicine, Inc.