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The authors conducted a prospective longitudinal study from 2009 to 2016 to assess the short and long-term impact of a formal mentorship program on junior faculty satisfaction and productivity. Junior faculty mentees enrolled in the program and junior faculty without formal mentorship were administered surveys before and after the program to assess satisfaction with their mentoring experiences. Long-term retention, promotion, and funding data were also collected. Twenty-three junior faculty mentees and 91 junior faculty controls were included in the study. Mentees came from the Departments of Radiation Oncology and Anesthesia, Critical Care, and Pain Management. After participating in the mentorship program, mentees demonstrated an increase in satisfaction from baseline in five of seven domains related to mentoring, while controls experienced no significant change in satisfaction in six of the seven domains. At long-term follow up, mentees were more likely than controls to hold senior faculty positions (percent senior faculty: 47% vs. 13%, p = 0.030) despite no difference in initial administrative rank. When comparing the subset of faculty who were Instructors at baseline, mentees were more likely to be funded and/or promoted than controls (p = 0.030). A majority of mentees reported that the program strengthened their long-term success, and many maintained their original mentoring relationships and formed new ones, highlighting the strong culture of mentorship that was instilled. Several short-term and long-term benefits were fostered from this formal mentorship program. These findings highlight the potential impact of mentorship programs in propagating a culture of mentorship and excellence.

The guidance of a mentor can have a tremendous influence on the careers of academic physicians. The lack of mentorship in the relatively young field of hospital medicine has been documented, but the efficacy of formalized mentorship programs has not been well studied. We implemented and evaluated a structured mentorship program for junior faculty at a large academic medical center. Of the 16 mentees who participated in the mentorship program, 14 (88%) completed preintervention surveys and 10 (63%) completed postintervention surveys. After completing the program, there was a statistically significant improvement in overall satisfaction within 5 specific domains: career planning, professional connectedness, self-reflection, research skills, and mentoring skills. All mentees reported that they would recommend that all hospital medicine faculty participate in similar mentorship programs. In this small, single-center pilot study, we found that the addition of a structured mentorship program based on training sessions that focus on best practices in mentoring was feasible and led to increased satisfaction in certain career domains among early-career hospitalists. Larger prospective studies with a longer follow-up are needed to assess the generalizability and durability of our findings.