Resident Mentoring Program Program Director & Contact Samer N. Khader, MD Director, Pathology Dept. Resident Mentoring Program 718.920.5025 718.515.5315 skhader@montefiore.org Location Research has shown that mentoring leads to higher levels of career satisfaction and higher rates of career advancement in mentees, especially if implemented early in a person’s career. Graduate medical education is well-suited to mentoring. Pairing residents with learned faculty mentors helps aspiring physicians maximize their potential and reach their professional and personal goals. The faculty mentor serves as a guide, role model and advocate for the resident mentee. Mentoring is a major facet of the Montefiore Einstein culture. Recognizing the benefits that mentoring can engender, the Pathology Department offers residents the opportunity to acquire these benefits through our Faculty-Resident Mentoring Program. Our goal is to provide residents with a positive, supportive environment in which to explore and refine career goals with the guidance of experienced faculty members. The program serves as a tool for monitoring and promoting the resident’s career goals, research productivity, professionalism and personal growth, keeping in mind that enthusiastic participation is the key to a successful mentor-mentee relationship. Program Structure Each resident will be paired with one faculty member. Resident provides faculty mentor with copies of updated CV and research publications. Pairing of mentors and residents will take into consideration career goals, interests, and faculty member availability. Faculty members will be assigned one resident per academic year. Resident and faculty mentor should establish, early on in the relationship, a mutually agreed-upon frequency of meeting and set of goals for the relationship. At the end of each academic year, the resident will be asked about career interests and faculty mentor preferences. The resident will also complete and submit to the faculty mentor a self-reflective essay, to assess the year’s progress and pinpoint future goals. The program recognizes that as a resident’s career interests evolve, they may need to change to a more appropriate mentor. The current mentor can serve as a guide in choosing a new mentor whose interests and expertise are more aligned with the mentee’s career goals. In the case of more than one senior resident with similar career interests requesting the same mentor, the decision to accept an additional mentee is at the discretion of the faculty mentor. Proposed changes in mentor assignment must be communicated to the Program Director’s office, and to all interested parties, for approval. This ensures adequate documentation of mentor-mentee relationships. The Program Director will discuss the mentorship pairing with the resident at the bi-annual resident review meetings. A quarterly evaluation form will be completed by the mentor and the mentee, to monitor the perceived usefulness of the mentorship program. (The evaluation will also serve as an impetus to regularly schedule faculty-resident meetings on at least a quarterly basis.) The evaluation form is intended to be used as a tool to assess the program and implement improvement strategies. It is not intended to be an evaluation of either the mentor or the mentee. The evaluation will be submitted, on a quarterly basis, to the Program Director’s office via the New Innovations web site. Location Montefiore Medical Center 111 E. 210th Street – Hofheimer Main, Rm. 409 Bronx, NY 10467