The Changing Faces of Mentorship: Application of a Developmental Network Framework in a Health Services Research Career Development Program.

Abstract

Historically, mentorship has been conceived of as a dyadic relationship between a senior mentor and an early-career investigator. Models involving multiple mentors have gained favor in recent years, but empirical research on multiple-mentor models has been lacking. The current work aims to fill this gap by describing a long-standing health services research mentoring program at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs which has adopted a network-based approach to mentoring. As part of a broader project, we surveyed VA HSR&D Career Development Awardees who received an award between 2000 and 2012. In total, 133 awardees participated (84%). Awardees reported on the structure of mentoring relationships with their two most influential mentors. Awardees were mentored by teams consisting of one to five mentors (M = 2.7 mentors). Most often, one mentor served as primary mentor while one or more mentors played a supporting role. In most cases, an awardee's primary mentor was co-located with the awardee, with fewer secondary mentors co-located. More recently funded CDAs had more mentors and were less likely to be co-located with secondary mentors. The VA HSR&D CDA program incorporates current thinking about Developmental Network models of mentorship into a comprehensive program providing a rich mentorship experience for its awardees.