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. 2013 Aug;35(6):456-61.
doi: 10.1097/MPH.0b013e31829eec33.

Mentoring in pediatric oncology: a report from the Children's Oncology Group Young Investigator Committee

Adam S Levy  1 , Kimberly A Pyke-Grimm, Dean A Lee, Shana L Palla, Arlene Naranjo, Giselle Saulnier Sholler, Eric Gratias, Kelly Maloney, Farzana Parshankar, Michelle Lee-Scott, Elizabeth A Beierle, Kenneth Gow, Grace E Kim, Stephen Hunger, Frank O Smith, Terzah M Horton
Affiliations

Mentoring in pediatric oncology: a report from the Children's Oncology Group Young Investigator Committee

Adam S Levy et al. J Pediatr Hematol Oncol. 2013 Aug.

Abstract

A formal Mentorship Program within the Children's Oncology Group (COG) was established to pair young investigators (mentees) with established COG members (mentors). Despite the American Academy of Pediatrics policy statement promoting mentorship programs, there are no publications describing and evaluating national mentorship programs in pediatric subspecialties. In this study, a series of internal program evaluations were performed using surveys of both mentors and mentees. Responses were deidentified and analyzed to determine the utility of the program by both participant satisfaction and self-reported academic productivity. Results indicated that mentees were generally satisfied with the program. Mentor-mentee pairs that met at least quarterly demonstrated greater academic productivity than pairings that met less frequently. This formal mentorship program appeared to have subjective and objective utility for the development of academic pediatric subspecialists.

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Conflict of interest statement

Contributor’s Statement Page

The authors have no conflicts of interest or funding to disclose.

Each listed author made substantive intellectual contributions to this manuscript using the following criteria:

  1. Substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data.

  2. Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and

  3. Final approval of the version to be published.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Young Investigator Committee Mentorship Program Overview
Figure 2
Figure 2
(A) Roles served by mentors as reported by mentees. (B) Meeting frequency reported by mentees.
Figure 3
Figure 3
(A) Relationship of gender to mentor-mentee interaction frequency. (B) Mentee gender and reported frequency of interactions. (C) Mentee gender and reported productivity.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Relationship of the frequency of mentor-mentee interactions with reported predictors and productivity outcome measures. p values shown are for Kruskal-Wallis analysis of the entire data set for each figure. Correlation of meeting frequency (and p values for Spearman nonparametric correlation) with A) the mentee’s perceived degree of “fit” with their mentor (p = 0.0094), B) the mentee’s perceived match of program expectations with the mentor’s (p = 0.0027), C) the mentee’s perceived match of time expectations with the mentor’s (p = 0.0092), and D) the mentee’s reported productivity (p = 0.0059).
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