July 7, 2010
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Mentor Development Program Gains Acclaim Across UCSF

By Kate Darby Rauch

Mallory Johnson, PhD, associate professor at the UCSF AIDS Research Institute with his mentee, Parya Saberi, a post-doctoral fellow in pharmacy at UCSF.

Academic careers are demanding, and it’s common for junior UCSF faculty to seek the wisdom of those who have been at it for years. It’s also common for senior faculty to become mentors – a function increasingly recognized at UCSF as a valuable career contribution. Indeed, when a faculty member is being considered for a promotion, mentoring is now given as much weight as teaching.

While mentoring is widely embraced at UCSF, that doesn’t mean it’s easy to do. Many well-intentioned mentors struggle to be effective. Some are too shy or insecure to view themselves as a guide. Others have their hearts in their job, but scramble to find the time to add mentoring to the load. Some are comfortable with finding funds for their own research, but less confident about guiding others in the complex, fast-changing world of research grants.

That is exactly what the University’s Mentor Development Program is intended to address. The program, designed to help senior faculty and researchers mentor their midcareer colleagues, was launched three years ago by UCSF’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI). The CTSI, charged with strengthening the link between basic research and clinical treatment, turned out to be an excellent home for mentor training, with its focus on practical, hands-on medicine. To date, some 55 people have gone through the program.

The First Program of Its Kind

The first of its kind at UCSF and perhaps in the nation, the mentoring program is gaining acclaim on campus and beyond. “Every element of this training helped on two levels: It helped to improve my own functioning, but it also helps those whom I’m mentoring,” said Mallory Johnson, PhD, associate professor at the School of Medicine, who attended the first session of the program and went on to become one of its biggest boosters.

“It’s an expectation of my job, and of most of the faculty, to mentor the next generation of researchers,” Johnson said. “But without concrete tools to do it, it’s haphazard.” Johnson was the lead author of an article about the program published last March in Academic Medicine.

Mallory Johnson

For Johnson, an invaluable element of the program lay in comparing notes with colleagues on work-life issues that aren’t usually discussed among faculty, and in discovering common ground. “I have two children, and maintaining academic productivity and mentoring while balancing home life is an ongoing challenge for me,” Johnson said. “It’s about getting help to normalize this challenge and learning how others are managing it.”

The program’s web resources include an interactive wiki site where students discuss case studies online. Recent posts cover such topics as helping mentees develop thick skin in the face of rejection for grants and publication, and whether it’s appropriate for mentors to ask mentees about their personal lives.

 

 

Commitment of Time, but with a Payoff

The program is open to faculty from all four UCSF schools who are on a career path in translational research and possess a strong desire to guide junior colleagues. Not all applicants are accepted, but the deciding factor usually centers on the time commitment, which can be considerable.

Many graduates acknowledge this, with no regrets. “It was a really good use of time,” said Alka M. Kanaya, MD, associate professor in the School of Medicine, who took the training this year. “There was a time when I really needed this type of support and I had it,” she said. “And it’s time to give back.”

Esteban Burchard, MD, MPH, assistant professor in the schools of medicine and pharmacy, who also took the course this year, said it had an immediate impact on how he works with the junior researchers in his lab. “We’re trained as scientists,” he said, which normally doesn’t include lessons on “the personal side” of being a mentor.

Burchard said he gained insights into managing conflicts that can arise on research teams, and insights into nudging students out of the tutorial nest to fly as independent researchers. “It’s like being a parent,” he said. “At some point, your teenager needs to leave the house.”

UCSF Model a Blueprint for Others

As word of the program spreads, medical schools nationwide are looking at UCSF’s model as a blueprint for their own programs, said Mitchell Feldman, MD, UCSF director of Faculty Mentoring, another campus program. “It’s unique. It’s the most extensive academic mentoring training program nationally,” Feldman said.

The program is part of a concerted effort to strengthen mentoring at UCSF, in partial response to a 2005 faculty survey showing concerns over the quality of “faculty life,” Feldman said. It was further promoted in UCSF’s 2007 strategic plan, which identified mentoring as a way of promoting a supportive work environment.

Moreover, UCSF Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann, MD, MPH, is an outspoken advocate for mentoring. She often speaks of having been profoundly influenced by three mentors: her father, a pharmacist and “great communicator and manager”; Lloyd Hollingsworth “Holly” Smith Jr., MD, chair of the UCSF Department of Medicine when Desmond-Hellmann was a medical resident there; and Art Levinson, PhD, the chairman and CEO of Genentech for most of her 14-year career at the South San Francisco company.

As chancellor, Desmond-Hellmann has stressed the importance of creating a community where every member feels a strong connection to the overall mission and vision of the University – something, she says, that can be accomplished only with the aid of strong mentors.

Time is required to measure the program’s impact, as success is defined largely by how the mentees do in their careers, Johnson said. “A program like this is a long-term investment.”

Photos by Susan Merrell