Facilitated Peer Mentorship for Women Internal Medicine Residents: An Early Intervention to Address Gender Disparities.

Abstract

A gender gap persists in academic medicine, most clearly demonstrated in disparities in advancement in rank and leadership roles. Though the number of women entering medicine has been steadily rising for decades, the number of women in prominent positions such as medical school deans, full professors, and department chairs remains low.1 One potential solution to address this continued gender disparity has been intentional mentorship and sponsorship for women trainees and junior faculty.Past literature has suggested that newer mentorship models, unique from the traditional mentorship dyad, may be more effective for women.2 Multiple mentoring or peer mentorship models allow for increased collaboration and can foster a sense of community. We hypothesized that facilitated peer mentorship (pairing multiple mentees with senior group facilitators) may benefit residents by fostering community building and collaboration with their peers, in addition to receiving guidance and mentorship from senior faculty. Additionally, this mentorship model allows for flexibility in terms of time commitment and engagement at different times in the academic year, which may align well with resident schedules. While successful use of these novel mentorship models has been previously described for women faculty,3 there is a paucity of literature about their use at the resident level.We developed a faculty-facilitated peer mentorship program for the women residents in our internal medicine residency program and women faculty volunteers from our department's Clinical Excellence Society (which recognizes well-established, respected clinicians in our department). We recognize the nonbinary nature of gender identity; for the purpose of this program, all residents identifying with she/her pronouns were invited to participate. Groups of 4 to 5 residents (categorical, primary care, medicine-pediatrics, and transitional) were paired with 2 faculty facilitators. Resident groups were intentionally composed of individuals in differing years of training (postgraduate year [PGY]-1 to PGY-4). Residents were paired with at least one faculty member with a similar clinical interest (ie, a future career in hematology) or an interest outside the hospital (ie, balancing parenting and a career in medicine).Mentoring groups were asked to meet 4 times over the course of the academic year; the logistics of scheduling were managed by the group facilitators with reminder emails from the program organizer quarterly. A general curriculum was provided to group facilitators for each meeting, with an identified topic and related resources or activities. Topics included developing your professional mission statement, strategies for work-life integration, finding a research mentor, and navigating transitions within academic medicine and becoming a leader.A total of 24 residents and 10 faculty participated in this new mentoring pilot. Faculty and residents were surveyed at the end of the year to assess their experience in the program: 63% (15 of 24) of residents and 80% (8 of 10) of faculty who participated in the program responded to the survey. The majority of resident respondents (86%, 12 of 14) found the program helpful, and 93% (13 of 14) would recommend participation in the program to their peers. Residents attended between 0 and 4 of the peer mentoring sessions, with roughly half (53%, 8 of 15) attending 2 or more. Both faculty and residents found scheduling to be the biggest challenge. Residents and faculty thought that several of our original program objectives were achieved (Figure) and found the topics discussed at each session to be relevant to residents (finding a research mentor was identified as the least relevant). All of faculty respondents (100%) found participation in this program to be professionally fulfilling, and all (100%) would recommend participation to their peers.Robust mentorship is key to success within academic medicine. Developing effective mentorship models is critically important for women early in their careers as a means to address the gender gap in academic medicine. This faculty-facilitated peer mentorship model was well received and perceived as effective by both faculty and residents.The authors would like to thank the residents and faculty who participated in this pilot program and who offered their feedback to improve future iterations.