Palliative Care Institute Liverpool, Academic Palliative & End of Life Care Centre, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.
Division of Palliative and Supportive Care, National Cancer Centre Singapore, Singapore, Singapore.
PLoS One. 2019 Apr 24;14(4):e0214643. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0214643. eCollection 2019.
Mentoring nurtures a mentee's personal and professional development. Yet conflation of mentoring approaches and a failure to contend with mentoring's nature makes it difficult to study mentoring processes and relationships. This study aims to understand of mentee experiences in the Palliative Medicine Initiative (PMI). The PMI uses a consistent mentoring approach amongst a homogeneous mentee population offers a unique opportunity to circumnavigate conflation of practices and the limitations posed by mentoring's nature. The data will advance understanding of mentoring processes.
Sixteen mentees discussed their PMI experiences in individual face-to-face audio-recorded interviews. The two themes identified from thematic analysis of interview transcripts were the stages of mentoring and communication.
The 6 stages of mentoring are the 'pre-mentoring stage', 'initial research meetings', 'data gathering', 'review of initial findings, 'manuscript preparation" and 'reflections'. These subthemes sketch the progression of mentees from being dependent on the mentor for support and guidance, to an independent learner with capacity and willingness to mentor others. Each subtheme is described as stages in the mentoring process (mentoring stages) given their association with a specific phase of the research process. Mentoring processes also pivot on effective communication which are influenced by the mentor's characteristics and the nature of mentoring interactions.
Mentoring relationships evolve in stages to ensure particular competencies are met before mentees progress to the next part of their mentoring process. Progress is dependent upon effective communication and support from the mentor and appropriate and timely adaptations to the mentoring approach to meet the mentee's needs and goals. Adaptations to the mentoring structure are informed by effective and holistic evaluation of the mentoring process and the mentor's and mentee's abilities, goals and situations. These findings underline the need to review and redesign the way assessments of the mentoring process are constructed and how mentoring programs are structured.
指导有助于培养被指导者的个人和专业发展。然而，指导方法的混淆以及未能应对指导的本质，使得研究指导过程和关系变得困难。本研究旨在了解姑息医学倡议（PMI）中被指导者的经验。PMI 在同质的被指导者群体中使用一致的指导方法，为规避实践的混淆以及指导本质所带来的限制提供了独特的机会。这些数据将有助于深入了解指导过程。
16 名被指导者在个人面对面的录音采访中讨论了他们在 PMI 中的经验。从访谈记录的主题分析中确定了两个主题，分别是指导的阶段和沟通。
指导的 6 个阶段是“指导前阶段”、“初始研究会议”、“数据收集”、“初步发现审查”、“手稿准备”和“反思”。这些子主题勾勒出被指导者从依赖导师的支持和指导，到成为具有能力和意愿指导他人的独立学习者的发展轨迹。每个子主题都被描述为指导过程中的阶段（指导阶段），因为它们与研究过程的特定阶段相关联。指导过程还取决于有效的沟通，而沟通又受到导师的特点和指导互动的性质的影响。
指导关系是分阶段发展的，以确保被指导者在进入指导过程的下一个阶段之前满足特定的能力要求。进展取决于导师的有效沟通和支持，以及对指导方法的适当和及时调整，以满足被指导者的需求和目标。对指导结构的调整是基于对指导过程以及导师和被指导者的能力、目标和情况的有效和全面的评估。这些发现强调了需要审查和重新设计评估指导过程的方式以及构建指导计划的方式。
