Abstract
This integrative literature review synthesizes the primary research evidence on mentoring female health academics published from 2000 to 2018, to identify the benefits, enablers and barriers to mentoring women. The need for this review is underpinned by the magnitude of change in higher education, the high number of women in health disciplines, limited progress in advancing women’s academic careers, escalating role expectations, faculty shortages and staff turnover. Data were sourced from Scopus, PubMed, EMBASE and Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature. Twenty-seven studies were included. Although effective mentoring facilitates personal and career development, academic craftsmanship, psychosocial support and job satisfaction, it is complicated by organizational factors and personal and relational dynamics. Enablers of mentoring are mentor availability and expertise, supportive relationships, mutuality and responsiveness. Lack of, or inadequate mentoring compromise women’s job satisfaction, career development and academic productivity. Providing female health academics access to experienced, well-connected mentors with common interests who are committed to advancing their career, is an investment in optimizing potential, promoting supportive work environments and increasing productivity and retention. Realizing the institutional potential that mentoring female health academics offers, is contingent on academic leaders valuing mentorship as faculty business and understanding the role that the contemporary academic environment plays in achieving mentoring outcomes. Further empirical and longitudinal research is needed to evaluate effective approaches for mentoring women in the contemporary academic environment.
Highlights
Academic mentorship features prominently in orientation, support of new faculty transitioning to the academic role, faculty development, career advancement, job satisfaction and retention [1,2,3,4]
The studies utilised a variety of mentoring modalities including traditional dyadic mentoring of senior and junior academics, facilitated peer mentoring whereby a senior academic mentored a group of less experienced mentees, formal and informal approaches, multiple mentors, and peer, collegial and collaborative relationships
While there have been few empirical studies that testify to the effectiveness of mentoring in health academia [4, 19], there is a broad body of evidence that supports the need for mentorship and this review provides further evidence supporting recommendations to mainstream mentoring in medicine [4] and nursing [69, 72]
Summary
Academic mentorship features prominently in orientation, support of new faculty transitioning to the academic role, faculty development, career advancement, job satisfaction and retention [1,2,3,4]. The reforms and turnover in higher education over the past two decades. Mentoring female health academics for this study. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
