Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, 2540 23rd Street, Room 4902; UCSF mailbox 1272, 94143, San Francisco, CA, USA.
, San Francisco, CA, USA.
BMC Med Educ. 2024 Aug 28;24(1):934. doi: 10.1186/s12909-024-05852-x.
Virtual activities, hybrid work and virtual mentoring have become part of the ongoing milieu of academic medicine. As the shift to remote mentoring continues to evolve, it is now possible to adapt, refine, and improve tools to support thriving mentoring relationships that take place virtually. This study explores strategies for virtual mentoring as a cornerstone for effective training programs among senior mentors participating in an ongoing mentoring program.
We conducted a qualitative study among prior and current participants of an ongoing "Mentoring the Mentors" program about key strategies for optimizing virtual mentoring. Data were coded and analyzed following a thematic analysis approach.
Respondents were mostly female (62%), white (58%), and associate (39%) or full professors (32%). We found that, with the expansion of hybrid and fully remote work, there are now fewer opportunities for informal but important chance meetings between mentors and mentees; however, virtual mentoring provides opportunities to compensate for reduced interactivity normally experienced in the workplace. The heightened need to plan and be more deliberate in the virtual sphere was woven throughout narratives and was the foundation of most recommendations. Specifically, a central obstacle for respondents was that spontaneous conversations were harder to initiate because virtual conversations are expected to have set agendas.
Developing new ways to maintain meaningful interpersonal relationships in a virtual training environment, including opportunities for serendipitous and informal engagement, is critical to the success of virtual mentoring programs.
虚拟活动、混合工作和虚拟指导已成为学术医学持续环境的一部分。随着远程指导的转变不断发展，现在可以调整、完善和改进工具，以支持在虚拟环境中蓬勃发展的指导关系。本研究探讨了作为高级导师参与持续指导计划的有效培训计划的基石的虚拟指导策略。
我们对一项持续的“指导导师”计划的前任和现任参与者进行了一项定性研究，探讨了优化虚拟指导的关键策略。数据采用主题分析方法进行编码和分析。
受访者主要为女性（62%）、白人（58%）、副教授（39%）或正教授（32%）。我们发现，随着混合和完全远程工作的扩展，导师和学员之间非正式但重要的偶然会面机会减少了；然而，虚拟指导提供了机会，可以弥补工作场所互动减少的问题。在虚拟领域中更需要计划和深思熟虑的情况在叙述中贯穿始终，并且是大多数建议的基础。具体来说，受访者的一个主要障碍是，由于虚拟对话预计有既定议程，因此很难发起自发对话。
在虚拟培训环境中开发新方法来维持有意义的人际关系，包括偶然和非正式参与的机会，对于虚拟指导计划的成功至关重要。
