“Mentors do not take their roles lightly. They feel invested in the success of the mentee”.

It’s really exciting to share our knowledge, experiences and offer insights to new people entering in the field and support them in their career planning.

Finding a mentor who is committed to continued learning is essential, but we all must be aware that good mentor-mentee relationships is a two-way street. Mentorship, therefore, is rewarding for both parties.

Why is mentorship important in medicine?

Mentorship in medicine has been identified as an important relationship between junior physicians, or “mentees,” and experienced professionals who nurture the development of both trainees and senior faculty members.

Finding a mentor is an important part of anyone’s professional career.

Considering the time, effort and money you’ve already invested in your studies, receiving guidance from someone who has already tread the same path could be an important—if not a vital step. Finding and maintaining productive mentoring relationships can be a significant challenge.

To my colleagues I would like to suggest to be open to mentoring, I understand as professionals in the medical field we are extremely busy with a number of other responsibilities. A mentor is someone who supports people to manage their own learning in order to maximize their potential, develop their skills, improve their performance, and become the person they want to be.

By coaching others and providing a valuable resource, mentors infact facilitate their own growth, gain new perspectives and establish an important bridge with new generation and cultures.

Mentorship can begin at any phase of medicine career.

How to Foster a Mentorship experience? My journey at Virgilio Program

If you have successfully navigated the path from being a trainee to an established clinician, researcher, or educator, you might consider having a new rewarding role as a Mentor.

I learnt a lot from Virgilio Program Mentorship experience, mentorship can be rewarding and even profound; lectures and papers can be delivered/published and then forgotten, the impact of mentorship might resonate throughout one’s career and beyond.

So, who is a mentor? Given that a mentee may have various needs, a mentor may adopt a wide range of roles, from sounding board and role model, through to challenger and critical friend. The result being that the mentee gets to test their assumptions and develop their decision-making process. A good mentor is someone who truly wants you to succeed.

I was lucky to be a Mentor of a really brilliant student Fabrizio Murru placed in the laboratory of Physiology.

I was happy to be able to guide his research lab experience and understand his career aspirations.

“As senior faculty, we must invest significant time in mentoring the next generation of outstanding clinical academics, encouraging and supporting them as they develop a research career. We all have a responsibility in this area, and I applaud Virgilio Program in this respect.”