Purpose: To investigate key characteristics of an Obstetrics & Gynecology (OBGYN) focused near-peer mentorship program in a university setting.
Background: Mentorship in medicine is an important tool for recruitment and retention of students. Both students and residents are motivated to mentor those who share similar backgrounds. However, access to mentors, racial and gender concordance of mentorship, and the optimal mentor-mentee pairing paradigm within the field of OBGYN is relatively unexplored in the literature.
Methods: In 2020, an OBGYN residency program piloted a novel resident-mentor/student-mentee pairing “near-peer” program. Mentors and mentees were paired based on their preferences for certain affinity groups (being racially/ethnically underrepresented in medicine, LGBTQIA+, and identity with parenthood). Surveys were sent to all paired mentors-mentees, as well as non-mentee students and non-mentor residents. Descriptive statistical analyses were performed.
Results: Twenty-two students were paired with twenty residents; fourteen students and four residents responded to the survey. Students preferred being mentored by senior medical students, followed by residents, then attendings. Residents preferred mentoring fourth-year students, followed by first- to third-year students, then pre-medical students. Student motivations for mentorship included desires to learn more about the field of OBGYN and residency through informal meetings, help with the residency match process, and networking.
Discussions: Resident-mentor/student-mentee dyads in this study preferred mentor-mentee relationships that were close in training level to one another, and shared identities with certain affinity groups. These findings call for future research in the evaluation of formal paired mentorship as well as near-peer mentorship within the field of OBGYN.
Topics: CREOG & APGO Annual Meeting, 2022, Student, Resident, Faculty, Clerkship Director, Professionalism, Interpersonal & Communication Skills, UME, Assessment, Advocacy,
Jessica Valdez, MPH, University of California, San Francisco; Maura Jones, MD; Jeannette Lager, MD
