» How to Choose a Mentor

How to Choose a Mentor
Jane F. Reckelhoff, Ph.D.
University of Mississippi Medical Center

Choosing a mentor is something that, as a scientist, you will do many times throughout your professional life, regardless of your scientific career stage or what career path you choose. What a mentor is, what a mentor does for you, what responsibilities the mentor has to you, what responsibilities you have to the mentor, and ethical considerations regarding the mentor/mentee relationship are subjects that will be discussed. The discussion will focus mainly on information needed by graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in choosing appropriate mentors.

What Is a Mentor?
The dictionary definition of a mentor is "an experienced and trusted advisor," "trusted counselor, guide, tutor or coach," or a "person who imparts wisdom." The term "mentor" traces back to the Odyssey of Homer in which the goddess, Athena, assumed the form of Odysseus's friend, Mentor, who was entrusted with the education of Odysseus' son, Telemachus.

Throughout your career, you will choose many mentors. Mentors will change depending on your career level, the career path you have chosen, and the specific area of counseling you need.

For example, as a new graduate student, you will choose a mentor who is likely to be a graduate advisor, research advisor, and thesis advisor. In this case, the mentor will provide advice in several areas, such as teaching you how to perform research, how to keep scientific records, how to observe ethics in research, how to make oral and written presentations of your work, and how to choose a postdoctoral position. The mentor will also foster your socialization with peers, particularly in the laboratory environment. In addition, the mentor may teach you how to interact with colleagues at scientific meetings, including what is appropriate dress and behavior for scientific meetings, and may introduce you to colleagues to help you begin the networking process that is so important in a scientific career. Alternatively, you may choose more than one mentor to advise you on these different areas of you career.

As a postdoctoral fellow, you will choose a mentor with whom you can perform research, but also someone to assist you to learn how to write research proposals, including research grants. A mentor can also help you to obtain a position after completion of your postdoctoral fellowship, whether it is an industry position, an academic position, or a non-traditional position. This may be the same person as your postdoctoral advisor or another scientist whose work you respect.

As a young independent scientist, you will choose a mentor who can guide you through the early start-up of your laboratory, writing your first independent Federal or foundation grant proposals, or learning what is expected of you and how to perform in a industry position. These mentors may be the same as those who have advised you as a graduate student or postdoctoral fellow or the mentor may be a new individual. In academics, as an assistant professor, you will also seek a mentor to help you with promotion and tenure issues. The mentor may also be proactive in suggesting additional funding agencies for grant submissions, such as young investigator grants or established investigator grants with which you may not be familiar or not be sure you are qualified to receive. The mentor may also help to promote you in your scientific society, such as by nominating you for society awards, committee service, and/or proposing you as a speaker in society meetings.

As a senior scientist, you may ask a mentor for advice on how to be head of a study section, journal editor, chair, dean, provost or president of a university, or CEO of a pharmaceutical company.

Therefore, mentors are important at all stages of your career. The mentors that you have relied on in the past may continue to be mentors in the future, but likely new mentors will be found as your career progresses and needs change. A mentor will serve as an advisor, a confidant, and a critic. Mentoring is a dynamic process and works best one on one.

What a Mentor Is Not
A mentor is not merely the person who provides money for research to be performed. This person, called a "patron" during the Renaissance, provided money to the artists of the time, exemplified by the de Medici family for Leonardo Da Vinci, but had little interaction with them on a personal or professional level. A mentor is not just a supervisor or one who oversees the dissertation or the research in the laboratory. A mentor is also not just someone who only serves as a link between the institution, the academic administration, its rules, and you. Finally, a mentor is not just a role model. However, a true mentor can be, and often is, all of these things.

What Are the Characteristics of a Successful Mentor/Mentee Relationship?
The characteristics of mentor/mentee relationships will vary depending on the personalities of you and your mentor and your respective needs. Similar research interests and/or work styles may promote good relationships. However, one of the key characteristics of a successful mentor/mentee relationship is trust. You have to be assured that the mentor has your best interests at heart, and that what you tell the mentor will be kept confidential. As such, the relationship between your mentor and you is exclusive and will outlive the time spent in formal training. Mentors are also often judged in light of the success of their former trainees, so your success will be important to your mentor.

The mentor may become a personal friend of yours, but this is not necessarily so, especially if you are a graduate student or postdoctoral fellow. More importantly, you and your mentor must have respect for each other and exhibit professional courtesy toward each other. There are research advisors at the graduate student or postdoctoral fellow level who do not have the personality to be a mentor outside of the bare minimum to direct research, help with manuscript preparation, and ensure minimal presentation skills. In that case, you must then find other mentors to meet your needs, either within your department or university, or perhaps via national mentoring centers, such as MentorNet.

To facilitate a strong mentor/mentee relationship, your mentor must clearly communicate his/her expectations for you. The boundaries in the relationship must be clearly stated at the outset and be consistent with each interaction. Because your mentor provides constructive criticism, the mentor must clearly explain the reasoning behind decisions that affect you, in order to allay any fears that could erode the mentoring relationship.

Finally, you and your mentor should adhere to the ethical rules accepted by the scientific community. In fact, if your mentor is also your graduate or postdoctoral advisor, then he/she will be responsible for teaching you ethical skills in various areas, such as research methods, scientific record keeping, peer reviewing, and writing. Ethics within the mentor/mentee relationship will be discussed more in detail below.

Considerations in Selecting a Mentor
As a graduate student and postdoctoral fellow, you will select a mentor who has similar research interests. The mentor should have a strong publication record and have current extramural research funding in order for you to learn how to be a successful scientist in a very competitive scientific community. Ideally the mentor should have national recognition.

Often graduate students or postdoctoral fellows do not choose junior faculty for mentors because they are less well known. However, if the junior faculty member is extramurally funded and was well-trained, the choice of a junior faculty member as a mentor is often beneficial for both of you. The junior investigator may have more time for mentoring than a senior investigator who may delegate interactions with you to senior technicians or postdoctoral fellows in the laboratory.

Consideration of a mentor should include university rank and tenure status. In addition, you should be cognizant of the proximity to retirement of a senior investigator, since the mentor may be slowing down his/her laboratory efforts as retirement approaches, with the caveat that senior scientists, even those who are slowing their research efforts, make excellent mentors due to their considerable experience.

Finally, as a graduate student or postdoctoral fellow, you should choose a laboratory in which the number of other graduate students or fellows is small enough to foster consistent, on-on-one interaction with the mentor rather than a surrogate, such as a senior postdoctoral fellow or laboratory manager. Another consideration in selecting a mentor is the current positions of former mentees, since one mark of a mentor's success is perceived to be the success of former students/trainees.

Another important consideration in choosing a mentor is the mentor's personality. You should seek out information from current or previous mentees regarding their interactions with a potential mentor. Questions that should be asked include, is the mentor approachable; how does the mentor manage the laboratory; does the mentor have an "open door" policy with mentees or does the mentor require preset appointments for discussions; does the mentor have a reputation for recognizing the mentees' accomplishments rather than taking credit for them by him/herself; does the mentor promote mentees with other investigators, granting agencies, scientific societies?

Responsibilities of the Mentee to the Mentor
Within a mentor/mentee relationship, you should act in a mature and ethical manner, being cognizant of the mentor's time constraints and professional demands. Honesty is a major component in the mentor/mentee relationship for both parties. You should maintain open communication with your mentor, and be proactive in your training and education, seeking out the mentor for advice instead of waiting for the mentor to come to you. This said, you should devote appropriate time and energy to achieving academic excellence, such as being familiar with the scientific literature important in your field of research, developing technical skills to be able to perform the experiments, work to develop oral and written communication skills, and finally, with time and experience, learn to design experiments. You should also recognize that the mentor has a responsibility to monitor the integrity of the research, writing, and presentations.

Ethical Issues in Mentoring
The mentor/mentee relationship should adhere to the highest level of ethics and integrity. Unfortunately, because you are dependent on your mentor for such things as research funds, salary support, successful completion of a thesis project, or future positions in academics, abuses of power can occur. These can take the form of acts of commission or omission and run the gamut from minor abuses, such as not providing enough time for interaction with you, to more egregious behavior, such as prolonging thesis work to foster the mentor's agenda, or even sexual harassment. For lesser problems with the mentor, you should discuss the situation with the mentor in a non-confrontational way. If you do not get satisfaction, you have recourse to the department chair and eventually to the dean of the graduate program if your are a student. For more flagrant violations, there will be a grievance committee at the university that will protect your confidentiality to which you can appeal for help.

Women and Mentors
Several studies have found that women are less likely to have adequate mentoring relationships than men, and do not ask advice from professors as often as men. This may have been due in part to the low numbers of women faculty in the past, to discomfort with a man as a mentor, or due to discomfort on the part of women to ask for advice. However, this situation has been alleviated somewhat by the increased numbers of women faculty. For whatever reasons, women have not availed themselves of mentors in the past. Therefore, it is imperative that women realize that having a mentor at every level of their careers is imperative to becoming a successful scientist.

Summary
Mentors will play important roles in the careers of most successful scientists. Mentors are trusted advisors that give constructive criticism and provide information in many areas of a scientific life. Mentors will likely change throughout your career as your position changes and thus the areas of advice needed changes. Despite the fact that you gain new mentors, the relationships with the old mentors likely will continue and often grow into strong friendships.

The American Physiological Society is a member of MentorNet, which is an award-winning, free, one-on-one electronic mentoring program for graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and early career scientists who are APS members. Mentees and mentors are matched based on their responses to several questionnaires regarding research interests, mentoring needs, time needed, etc. Once assigned, mentors and mentees are allowed to approve their matches, and once done, contact information is given to each pair. A new mentor can be assigned every 8 months. These electronic mentoring relationships are especially helpful if you are not comfortable discussing certain things with your thesis or postdoctoral advisor. APS encourages all members to participate either as a mentee or mentor in this valuable program.

Comments:
One thing that this article mentioned which I think is particularly important is talking to current or previous mentees of any prospective mentor.  Not only should these interactions give you insight into the mentor's personality and lab management style, this is one of the few ways you may be made aware of any significant issues in the laboratory environment and/or with the mentor's style.  Typically, if you speak to your potential labmates in private they will be eager to tell you what they "really think" about their mentor - good or bad.  In fact, someone once told me that if your potential mentor does not provide time (during an postdoc interview, etc.) for you to interact with your potential labmates when he/she is not present, this should be taken as a major red flag.   Although funding, publication record, and name recognition are important factors in choosing a mentor, talking to both past and current mentees will give you a unique perspective that you won't find by looking through their pubmed record.
Jennifer Pluznick
Yale University

I would emphasize that finding a mentor and being mentored requires work and needs to be fostered throughout one's career.

Another comment I don't think was mentioned is that it is alright to have multiple mentors, each with a different set of skills that may help you grow in different areas.
Colleen Cosgrove Hegg
Michigan State University

I agree with the comments about a willingness to choose a junior faculty as a mentor as long as they have funding and are sound scientists. While there are inherent risks such as future funding and tenure decisions, junior faculty generally do spend a considerable amount of time in the lab and are often more willing to spend the time to mentor a student. In addition, in order for junior faculty to achieve tenure and maintain funding, it is critical for them to have graduate students in their lab to conduct experiments, especially if the faculty member has significant teaching responsibilities. Successful graduate students are imperative for junior faculty to achieve tenure and the relationship is often beneficial to all involved as the student receives excellent mentoring, can work more directly with the faculty member, and has the opportunity take on a greater leadership role in a smaller lab setting.
Kim Huey
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

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