Mentoring is not “Short-Term”: effective continuing mentoring strategies for undergraduate short-term summer program participants after the research experience

Abstract

Short-term summer research experiences are a “crash-course” in unique research and mentoring opportunities. Mentoring by research faculty is a key component to short-term summer undergraduate research experiences through laboratory training, one-on-one mentoring, and overall engagement in the program. Faculty members also encourage retention of these scholars in research areas. However, continuing mentorship beyond the brevity of the experience is often difficult for both the faculty mentor and the mentee, particularly if they are at different institutions. The UAB kidney, urology, and non-malignant hematology (KUH) undergraduate research experience (KURE) has been active since 2014 and since 2018 as an NIH-funded R25 Program focused on kidney research and interdisciplinary KUH experiences. UAB KURE has trained over 99 scholars (33% underrepresented in biomedical sciences) in individualized kidney physiology and pathophysiology research as well as clinical experiences. The KURE scholars were individually matched with a faculty mentor and daily supervisors or near peers to support the project and research experience. Over 32 UAB faculty members have mentored a KURE scholar in this short-term experience with 72% (23 of 32) faculty members being a mentor for 2 or more summer experiences. Many in the UAB KURE cohorts have developed a strong bond with the mentor and KUH community at UAB. Those scholars continue in research either at a distance or in future summers, a number return as gap year interns, and many are in communication for future career direction or support. This on-going mentoring and engagement with KURE Scholars as a near peer and a faculty mentor requires time and focus. Determining the most effective means and resources to continue mentoring summer scholars in the long-term is an important consideration. Continual mentoring of summer undergraduate KURE scholars has a critical impact in retaining these scholars and increasing the diversity of researchers and clinicians in the KUH larger community. Through one-on-one qualitative interviews and quantitative survey analysis, we investigated the key aspects of ongoing mentoring of short-term research scholars. We will present methods, metrics, and models for ongoing mentoring, as well as the complex nature and significance of this ongoing mentoring after the summer experience to those scholars who are underrepresented in medicine. Funded by R25 DK115353 This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2023 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.