Abstract
.Mentoring is beneficial to mentors, mentees, and their institutions, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), that are faced with complex disease burdens, skills shortages, and resource constraints. Mentoring in global health research can be enhanced by defining key competencies, to enable the skill set required for effective mentoring, determine training needs for local research mentors, and facilitate institutional capacity building to support mentors. The latter includes advocating for resources, institutional development of mentoring guidelines, and financial and administrative support for mentoring. Nine core global health research mentoring competencies were identified: maintaining effective communication; aligning expectations with reasonable goals and objectives; assessing and providing skills and knowledge for success; addressing diversity; fostering independence; promoting professional development; promoting professional integrity and ethical conduct; overcoming resource limitations; and fostering institutional change. The competencies described in this article will assist mentors to sharpen their cognitive skills, acquire or generate new knowledge, and enhance professional and personal growth and job satisfaction. Similarly, the proposed competencies will enhance the knowledge and skills of mentees, who can continue and extend the work of their mentors, and advance knowledge for the benefit of the health of populations in LMICs.
Highlights
High-quality mentorship has the ability to transform the trajectory of individual career paths and to shape the identity and success of institutions.[1]
Defining competencies for mentoring in a global health context is important for several reasons: providing an opportunity to define the skill set required for effective mentoring in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs); determining the training needs for local research mentors;[13,14,15,16] and advocating for resources, institutional development of guidelines, and support for mentoring for basic, clinical, and/or public health research.[17]
We adapted two major sources describing research mentoring competencies that were developed primarily for use in mentoring in high-income country (HIC).[7,10]. These were augmented by the outcomes of four mentorship training workshops held in Africa, Asia, and South America[18]; summary discussions from a global health research mentoring workshop held in Virginia in 2017; input from global health mentoring experts at a subsequent meeting in New York City in 2018; and a modified Delphi approach based on input from the coauthors
Summary
High-quality mentorship has the ability to transform the trajectory of individual career paths and to shape the identity and success of institutions.[1]. Defining competencies for mentoring in a global health context is important for several reasons: providing an opportunity to define the skill set required for effective mentoring in LMICs; determining the training needs for local research mentors;[13,14,15,16] and advocating for resources, institutional development of guidelines, and support for mentoring for basic, clinical, and/or public health research.[17] This article proposes a framework of competencies required for mentoring in a global health research context for mentors and institutions in LMICs. We adapted two major sources describing research mentoring competencies that were developed primarily for use in mentoring in HICs.[7,10] These were augmented by the outcomes of four mentorship training workshops held in Africa, Asia, and South America[18]; summary discussions from a global health research mentoring workshop held in Virginia in 2017; input from global health mentoring experts at a subsequent meeting in New York City in 2018; and a modified Delphi approach based on input from the coauthors.
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