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| Jane F. Reckelhoff |
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 eight 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.
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http://www.the-aps.org/careers/careers1/mentor/mentoring.htm. |
