Did you ever have a teacher who changed your course of your life? Someone whose habits, actions, insights and integrity made you want to follow in their footsteps? Members of Dell Medical School share personal stories of profound influencers in this blog series.
Why do we need mentors in medicine and science? In the age of the internet and the emerging age of artificial intelligence, when all information is at our fingertips and nearly any question can be answered in a split second, why should there still be a need for flesh-and-blood mentors?
Facts are indeed easy to look up. However, mentors help us think through problems by helping us mature in our thinking, push aside feelings that may cloud our judgment, and see “the big picture” by sharing their own experiences, allowing us to gain years of insight in one brief conversation.
A good mentor is there to guide us at different career stages not simply to provide information we can find ourselves, but to offer “value added” that cannot be gained from looking up a fact. Seeing a patient and then presenting them to an attending mentor can help weed through the minutiae of a patient’s history and focus on the key facts and personal attributes that clinch the diagnosis.
A good mentor guides the medical student not just to think about which antibiotic to prescribe, but to see the person behind the disease; to consider social factors that may contribute to the diagnosis; to weigh financial considerations as well as the patient’s past and future experiences; and to arrive at a fitting diagnosis and appropriate treatment that takes the whole person into account.
Beyond the efficiency of caring for the patient, a good mentor helps us reflect on questions we should have asked and understand that Mrs. Wilde is not just “the interesting case of stroke in bed 4,” but a grandmother worried about missing her grandson’s graduation. The discussion between mentee and mentor creates a sacred space in which to develop a fitting plan for the patient, and when this is successful, the patient feels that their needs as an individual have been taken into account and is more likely to follow the proposed diagnostic and treatment plan.
One of my sage mentors once said that mentorship is about “belly laughs.” What he meant was that a mentor’s job is to lighten the load of the mentee and find humor in difficult situations. These “belly laughs” are an essential reminder that daily academic struggles are passing moments and should not bear as much weight as mentees often place on them.
Another goal of the mentor is to create space for the mentee to mature in their thinking — to serve as a coach who guides the mentee in learning how to think through problems and feel ready to make decisions, while serving as a “catching net” along the way. Just as young birds learn to fly in the nest, the job of the mentor is to teach the mentee to “fly” and to make mistakes, but in a calculated way, so the mentee learns to feel comfortable making medical decisions that affect patients’ lives.
Beyond teaching specific skills — such as how to write a medical note, read imaging studies or perform a physical exam — a mentor is there to impart wisdom, to help reveal the side of the patient that is hard to see, and to ask questions that add value toward clinching the diagnosis.
One of the most important jobs of a mentor is to teach the mentee how to become a mentor themselves. This may be the toughest job of all. With enough practice and modeling, the mentee can become not only a mentor to others, but perhaps even a co-mentor to their own mentor.
In the age of the internet and AI, there will always be room for flesh-and-blood mentors who guide, inspire, and offer much-needed wisdom, levity and laughter. These relationships can help us avoid burnout and allow trainees to continue enjoying the art of medicine — the very reason many of us entered this profession in the first place. In the end, medicine is not just about treating disease; it is about caring for fellow humans, and this is something AI has not yet mastered.
The Kern National Network for Caring & Character in Medicine (KNN) is a national network of seven medical schools dedicated to advance caring and character in medicine with the goal of promoting human flourishing. Guided by the principles of caring and character, the KNN provides a framework for training physicians, strengthening joy in medicine and improving health to promote human flourishing within, across and beyond the medical profession to positively impact individuals and communities in our society.
This initiative was made possible through support from the Kern National Network for Caring & Character in Medicine through an investment from the Kern Family Trust and Kern Family Foundation.