The UNMC Department of Internal Medicine marked the close of the first year of a new mentorship program with a lunch event last week.
Approximately 30 mentors and mentees attended the event.
 |
Participants in the inaugural mentoring program. |
“In recent years, the Department of Internal Medicine has had the good fortune to have an uptick in our recruitment to an already quite large department,” said Shannon Boerner, M.D., director for faculty mentoring and development. “This increases the demand for ensuring our newest faculty are quickly and efficiently onboarded.”
Actively building and shaping a career pathway from the beginning is one of the major goals in the new mentoring program.
“Mentoring is one of the best ways to utilize our faculty expertise in providing guidance and advice to our newest members,” Dr. Boerner said.
During the 2015-16 academic year, the department matched 30 new faculty with mentors and built a monthly mentoring schedule for each pair.
“The mentees have reported that they found this program useful,” Dr. Boerner said. “Some of their specific issues addressed include goal setting, curriculum vitae maintenance, promotion and tenure, leadership, teaching, how to say “no,” research, national organization leadership and involvement, progress, project prioritization and ‘seeing the big picture.'”
Mentees also noted that they felt inclusion in this program indicated a culture receptive to mentoring in the department, another important goal of the program.
Dr. Boerner said she was “delighted” with the successful first year, offering thanks to both mentors and mentees.
Department chair Deb Romberger, M.D., praised Dr. Boerner for the success of the new program.
“We’re off to a good start,” she said. “We recognize that we have a journey to continue to expand activities, because you can’t do too much to help your faculty carve their pathway to the kind of job satisfaction they want.
“I have had tremendous mentors in my life, starting with my research mentor, Dr. (Steven) Rennard, and having advanced through many mentors that have been very helpful to me,” Dr. Romberger said. “So we understand that we need to connect our faculty to mentors all through different stages of their career. We’ve been focused on the early faculty right now, but we’re going to be working on those mid-level faculty in our department soon.”