JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Background/

Objective:

Mentoring, advising, and coaching play vital roles in supporting resident education and development. However, limited data exists regarding how anesthesia faculty view these practices. This study explored faculty perspectives on the importance, implementation, and barriers related to these resident support modalities.

Objective:

Background/

Objective:

Mentoring, advising, and coaching play vital roles in supporting resident education and development. However, limited data exists regarding how anesthesia faculty view these practices. This study explored faculty perspectives on the importance, implementation, and barriers related to these resident support modalities.

Methods:

Methods:

A survey was distributed to 93 anesthesia faculty at Washington University eliciting perceptions regarding mentoring, advising, and coaching. Both quantitative Likert scale and qualitative short answer questions examined the value, optimal format, necessary skills, potential to fulfill multiple roles, impact of staff shortages, training needs, and recruitment potential of these resident support practices.

Results:

Results:

The response rate was 44% (N=41). Mentoring was viewed as most important (88%), followed by coaching (78%). Majority felt one faculty member can effectively hold multiple roles for a given trainee. All roles were seen as facilitating recruitment and retention. Barriers included faculty burnout, confusion between roles, time constraints, and desire for specialized training, especially in coaching skills

Conclusions:

Conslusion: Implementing structured mentoring, advising, and coaching can profoundly impact resident education but requires role clarity, protected time, culture change, leadership buy-in, and faculty development. Targeted training and operational investments could enable programs to actualize immense benefits from high-quality resident support modalities. Respondents emphasized that resident needs evolve over time, necessitating flexibility in assigning appropriate faculty guidance. While coaching demands unique skills, advising hinges on expertise and mentoring on relationship-building. Systematic frameworks outlining expectations, assignments, documentation procedures, and success tracking could unlock immense potential. However, realizing this vision demands surmounting barriers like burnout, productivity pressures, confusion about logistics, and culture change. Ultimately, prioritizing resident support through high-quality personalized guidance can re-center graduate medical education on nurturing learners amidst competing service obligations.