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. 2024 Jul 5;24(1):726.
doi: 10.1186/s12909-024-05707-5.

Mentoring as a complex adaptive system - a systematic scoping review of prevailing mentoring theories in medical education

Mac Yu Kai Teo  1   2   3 , Halah Ibrahim  4 , Casper Keegan Ronggui Lin  1   2   3   5   6 , Nur Amira Binte Abdul Hamid  3 , Ranitha Govindasamy  1   3   6 , Nagavalli Somasundaram  3   7   8 , Crystal Lim  8   9 , Jia Ling Goh  1   2   3 , Yi Zhou  1   2   3 , Kuang Teck Tay  1   2   3 , Ryan Rui Song Ong  1   2   3 , Vanessa Tan  1   2   3 , Youru Toh  1   2   3 , Anushka Pisupati  1   2   3 , Vijayprasanth Raveendran  1   2   3 , Keith Zi Yuan Chua  1   2   3 , Elaine Li Ying Quah  1   2   3 , Jeevasuba Sivakumar  1   2   3 , Samyuktha Dhanalakshmi Senthilkumar  1   2   3 , Keerthana Suresh  1   2   3 , Wesley Teck Wee Loo  1   2   3 , Ruth Si Man Wong  1   2   3 , Yiying Pei  1   2   3 , Julia Huina Sng  1   2   3 , Simone Qian Min Quek  1   2   3 , Jasmine Lerk Juan Owyong  3 , Ting Ting Yeoh  3   5 , Eng Koon Ong  2   3   7   10 , Gillian Li Gek Phua  2   11 , Stephen Mason  12 , Ruaraidh Hill  13 , Anupama Roy Chowdhury  7   14 , Simon Yew Kuang Ong  3   7   8 , Lalit Kumar Radha Krishna  15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22
Affiliations

Mentoring as a complex adaptive system - a systematic scoping review of prevailing mentoring theories in medical education

Mac Yu Kai Teo et al. BMC Med Educ. .

Abstract

Background: Effective mentorship is an important component of medical education with benefits to all stakeholders. In recent years, conceptualization of mentorship has gone beyond the traditional dyadic experienced mentor-novice mentee relationship to include group and peer mentoring. Existing theories of mentorship do not recognize mentoring's personalized, evolving, goal-driven, and context-specific nature. Evidencing the limitations of traditional cause-and-effect concepts, the purpose of this review was to systematically search the literature to determine if mentoring can be viewed as a complex adaptive system (CAS).

Methods: A systematic scoping review using Krishna's Systematic Evidence-Based Approach was employed to study medical student and resident accounts of mentoring and CAS in general internal medicine and related subspecialties in articles published between 1 January 2000 and 31 December 2023 in PubMed, Embase, PsycINFO, ERIC, Google Scholar, and Scopus databases. The included articles underwent thematic and content analysis, with the themes identified and combined to create domains, which framed the discussion.

Results: Of 5,704 abstracts reviewed, 134 full-text articles were evaluated, and 216 articles were included. The domains described how mentoring relationships and mentoring approaches embody characteristics of CAS and that mentorship often behaves as a community of practice (CoP). Mentoring's CAS-like features are displayed through CoPs, with distinct boundaries, a spiral mentoring trajectory, and longitudinal mentoring support and assessment processes.

Conclusion: Recognizing mentorship as a CAS demands the rethinking of the design, support, assessment, and oversight of mentorship and the role of mentors. Further study is required to better assess the mentoring process and to provide optimal training and support to mentors.

Keywords: Communities of practice; Complex adaptive systems; Host organization; Medical education; Mentoring; Mentorship theories.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Mentoring ecosystem. The yellow circles represent the mentee’s microenvironment while the blue circles symbolize other stakeholders’ microenvironments. The dark green spiral represents the mentoring tube, and the thin blue lines represent the changing course of the mentoring relationship along the mentoring trajectory. The mentoring trajectory is framed around key stages of development. Some of these stages are highlighted. The mentoring trajectory is not depicted as a smooth course underlining the inevitable changes apparent across the mentoring stages
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
The SEBA process
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
PRISMA flowchart. Snowballing articles were derived from searching the references of all included articles
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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