Abstract
BACKGROUND: Mentorship is an important resource for professional development and success. OBJECTIVE: Evaluate differences in mentorship with respect to personal, professional, and academic characteristics. DESIGN: Mixed-methods study using semi-structured interviews and a survey. PARTICIPANTS: Promotion-eligible faculty and full Professors with a primary appointment in the Department of Medicine at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. MAIN MEASURES: Degree to which mentorship needs were met, generation of scholarly work, academic promotion, current, and ideal participation in academic activities. KEY RESULTS: A total of 159 (54.6%) of 291 eligible faculty completed questions regarding mentorship. Fewer than half (76, 47.8%) reported that their mentorship needs were met "to a great extent" or "somewhat," with no differences associated with race, gender, age, career stage, or rank. Faculty who were primarily educators (29/74, 39.2%) had lower rates of mentorship adequacy than research-oriented faculty (26/41, 63.4%; P = 0.013), and general internists (18/42, 34.6%) had lower rates of mentorship adequacy than subspecialists (56/105, 53.3%; P = 0.027). Generation of scholarly work, promotion within 5 years, and satisfaction with degree of engagement in leadership, research, and scholarship were positively associated with having one's mentorship needs met. CONCLUSIONS: Academic internal medicine faculty at all ages, career stages, and academic ranks have unmet mentorship needs. Mentorship gaps were more prominent for educators and clinical generalists than for research-oriented faculty and specialists. Having mentorship needs met positively correlated with scholarly productivity, academic promotion, and satisfaction with academic engagement.