Abstract
Purpose: Diversity at all levels of medical training remains relatively stagnant, despite efforts to address equity in medical schools. Early career-specific mentoring may address barriers to the pursuit of medical education for students underrepresented in medicine (URiM). By surveying a program that engages medical students as drivers of career-specific mentorship for URiM high school students, this study evaluates medical student mentors' experiences mentoring and seeks to develop a mentorship curriculum.Methods: The authors describe a medical student-led pipeline program, which connects medical students with URiM high school students. Medical student mentors participated in focus groups and gave written responses evaluating reasons for involvement, sociocultural attitudes, and skills needed for mentoring. Thematic analysis was applied.Results: Themes that emerged in this analysis include motivation to mentor, skills used to approach the mentoring relationship, and benefits to the mentor. Mentors felt their experiences had a high impact factor, and they employed dynamic discovery. It provided personal reward and a deeper understanding of disparities.Conclusion: Bringing medical school mentors together for peer to peer idea sharing, creating communities of practice, will help these students develop effective mentorship skills. A curriculum based on appreciative inquiry of mentors' strengths will enrich idea sharing, fostering cultural humility and avoiding burnout. Medical students involved in this program believe they gained benefits, including improving their mentorship skills, expanding their cultural humility, increasing their comfort with caring for underserved populations, and improving their ability to recognize health disparities.
Highlights
Efforts have focused on every level of medical training, including undergraduate pipeline programs, postgraduate baccalaureate programs, and medical school admissions.[5,6,7]
Each program seeks a common goal to expand the pool of underrepresented in medicine (URiM) students matriculating to medical school
The purpose of this report is to (1) identify what motivated medical students to get involved in the mentoring program, (2) explore awareness of health disparities and cultural humility among mentors, and (3) establish a foundation for developing a mentorship curriculum that is based on an appreciative inquiry model to capture the strengths and qualities of mentors and promotes mentor participation in communities of practice
Summary
There continues to be a lack of diversity at all levels of medical training and among practicing physicians, despite numerous initiatives to diversify the U.S healthcare professional workforce.[1,2,3,4] Efforts have focused on every level of medical training, including undergraduate pipeline programs, postgraduate baccalaureate programs, and medical school admissions.[5,6,7] Each program seeks a common goal to expand the pool of underrepresented in medicine (URiM) students matriculating to medical school.While the amount of success at changing the number of matriculates remains elusive, there have been significant advances in identifying barriers to pursuit of medical education by URiM students. There continues to be a lack of diversity at all levels of medical training and among practicing physicians, despite numerous initiatives to diversify the U.S healthcare professional workforce.[1,2,3,4] Efforts have focused on every level of medical training, including undergraduate pipeline programs, postgraduate baccalaureate programs, and medical school admissions.[5,6,7] Each program seeks a common goal to expand the pool of underrepresented in medicine (URiM) students matriculating to medical school. Minority students have been provided with fewer academic resources than their peers before college.[8]. URiM students are subsequently less likely to pursue science majors in the first 2 years of undergraduate education.[9]. A smaller percentage will pursue graduate education in science fields.
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