What is mentoring?

Surprisingly, at a time when the evidence base for clinical practice has never been so eagerly sought after within the NHS, an approach to continuing professional development has emerged which seems to be not susceptible to measurement and to be subject to a wide variety of definitions.

The concept of ‘mentoring’ has been interpreted across a continuum from a remedial or therapeutic intervention to ‘buddying’ and the entirely informal. Specific benefits are hard to identify within the available literature. However, Rodenhauser et al (2000) do refer to the kind of outcomes that can be obtained from the process:

However difficult it is to measure the benefits of mentoring in a quantifiable way, there has nonetheless emerged, over the last decade, a consensus among the healthcare community that the encouragement of mentoring schemes is good practice and adds value.

The trend in recent years to hold professionals to account for their practice has seen the adoption of a number of management innovations. In the NHS, the development of appraisal schemes, often associated with discretionary awards, has become universal. Similarly, together with appraisal, coaching schemes, mentoring programmes and similar interpersonal development initiatives for hospital doctors have become increasingly common. Statutory revalidation, while independent of such developmental initiatives, has nonetheless added to the idea that clinical practice requires ongoing reflection and assessment.

A consensus has emerged around the definition of mentoring produced by the Standing Committee on Postgraduate Medical Education of the British Medical Association (BMA):

Not surprisingly, there are a variety of other definitions which have more or less congruence with this approach.