Note: This builds upon a prior post about building mentoring teams, much of which was specific to UCSF and career-development awards. This is more general, and updates/duplicates/expands upon content within a prior post about postdoctoral fellowships.

Over the course of your career you will likely work with a variety of mentors and for different reasons. You may need content or methods expertise, access to clinical groups, project-specific feedback, professional development (learning new research skills, manage time, administer projects), accountability, institutional sponsorship (e.g. someone advocating for your best interests behind closed doors), access to networks, a sense of community, role models, safe space (list modified from an NCFDD weekly email). It’s rare that one person can address all these needs; more likely you will assemble a network of supports that include mentors, sponsors, peer-mentors, therapists and coaches that you lean on to differing degrees at different times.  

Ideally, you will be able to work with mentors you think are good and ethical people, who are generous in both spirit and available time, whose research & writing styles complement your own, who are role models, whose work-life integration you want to emulate. More often, you get some but not all of these aspirational characteristics. One way to test out whether this is a feasible, generative relationship for the long-term is to write one or more research paper(s) together in your first year of fellowship. At minimum, as you are evaluating whether this would be a mutual fit, I recommend asking to join some of their research meetings and talking to some of their current mentees. 

Don’t underestimate the value of peer mentors – other fellows, or junior faculty just 1-3 years ahead of you in the career pathway – where you can share & receive advice about navigating tricky issues, or to invite as second or middle authors on papers.

Working with your mentor(s)

Understanding the roles and responsibilities of the mentor and mentee is critical. The basic responsibilities of the primary mentor are to provide ongoing, regular, and in-depth advice to their mentee both about specific projects that the mentee is working on with the mentor, and more generally about the mentee’s career development and advancement. Above all, your mentor is responsible for helping you to do great work and helping you meet productivity metrics. This is a win-win relationship, as your mentors also look productive when you publish, and publications they senior author with you will help them with their own promotion prospects. 

There are several basic responsibilities of the mentee vis-à-vis the primary mentor. Proactively schedule regular meetings with the mentor (send a meeting request), and prepare an agenda for those meetings (i.e. be prepared to know what you want to discuss). In meetings with your mentor, consider using an Individual Development Plan (IDP).  Send the mentor any materials that you want read and critiqued several days before the meeting. Keep in mind the critically reviewing a draft of your paper and helping you make it better is fulfilling, but hard work.  Good mentors often spend many hours reading, rereading, and thinking about one of your drafts. So, while they should be responsive, do give them time!  Finally, be enthusiastic, intellectually curious, and keep your research moving forward.    

A final note on mentorship and expectations

There is no universal consensus about how the mentor-mentee relationship should work. Many people are not trained in becoming mentors and may not have explicit teaching or may not have benefited from great mentoring themselves. As a result, you likely will get different advice and hear different expectations from faculty in other divisions and departments, and from other fellows you encounter. I recommend trying to make expectations and working styles explicit in each of your mentoring relationships.