P39
APAGBI NATIONAL MENTORING SCHEME - THE HALFWAY REVIEW
S. Kanani1, C. Riley2
1Nottingham University NHS Trust, UK
2Sheffield Children's Hospital, UK
Introduction
The Association of Paediatric Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland (APAGBI) promotes high standards in paediatric anaesthesia through education, research, and advisory work.
Mentoring is recognised as a way of “helping someone else become effective at developing their opportunities” and an established network is run by the Association of Anaesthetists1. It was recognised that there was a lack of mentoring to encourage and support trainees interested specifically in paediatric anaesthesia. The idea of an APABGI mentoring network was advertised to consultant and trainee members in summer 2023. No formal mentor training was mandated, links to training resources were included for those interested and a time commitment of 15 minutes per month was estimated.
49 consultants agreed to mentor a trainee and 21 trainees requested a mentor. Having surveyed special interests, each trainee was matched to a mentor suited to them in terms of subspecialty or geography. Each mentor/mentee partnership was introduced via email and allowed subsequent independence. The partnerships were surveyed after six months to understand the process and draw some conclusions.
Methods
An electronic questionnaire was sent to all trainees and each consultant paired with a mentee.
Results
Consultant survey:
14/21 consultants replied to the survey. 12/14 had been contacted by their mentee, and the majority had been in touch around three times in six months. The most common subjects discussed were fellowships and consultant jobs. Half the consultants would like to receive more guidance on being a mentor; free text replies asked for a brief summary of what is expected, and expressed interest in formal training to be a mentor. All were happy to continue being a mentor for the remainder of the year.
Trainee survey:
12/21 trainees replied to the survey. Half are in contact once per month, with the rest once every other month. Half of trainees requested help with CVs and fellowships, whilst a quarter wished to enquire more about the job of a paediatric anaesthetist. No trainees required further guidance and all were happy with the scheme so far. There was one request to be given a mentor outside of their trust and a concept we will take into consideration in future versions of the scheme.
Discussion and conclusion
The mentoring network introduction has been successful with productive partnerships established. The next steps are to produce a recommendation of what is expected of the mentoring process, and to expand the network to include mentoring of secondary and newly appointed tertiary paediatric anaesthetic consultants. Links to resources such as formal mentoring training will continue to be provided.
Reference:
- https://anaesthetists.org/Home/Wellbeing-support/Mentoring (Accessed 25/01/2024)