Mentoring in Medical Education: Impact on the Undergraduate Students

Mentoring acts as a catalyst in moulding an efficient medical graduate. Although acknowledged that mentoring helps in successful career in medicine, the studies related to mentoring were hardly done from Telangana state. The present study was designed to assess the perception of students on mentoring programme and its impact. It was a questionnaire-based cross-sectional study done at Kamineni Institute of Medical Sciences, Narketpally on MBBS 3rd Semester students. Based on their experience in mentoring programme during I MBBS, they were asked to fill the questionnaire about perception of students about mentoring and how it helped them to improve. Out of 122 students, 86 responded (70.93%-females, 29.07%-males). 43.1% attended all mentoring sessions, 54.6% missed few and 2.33% attended none. 57% of students benefitted from mentoring [academically (36%)/personally (4.7%)/both (16.3%)]. Most students (90.7%) preferred one-to-one mentoring. Only 68.6% had adequate contact with their mentor. The areas discussed during mentoring were mainly academic (34.9%-marks, attendance, exam preparation) and others like hostel, personal issues, stress management and so on. Only few students (12.8%) stated to have no barriers in communicating with mentor, whereas some students stated time constraints (43%), lack of concern from mentor (12.8%) and commitment by students (7%) as barriers. Students suggested that choice to be given in selecting their own mentors and address the above barriers. Present study supports the significance of early implementation of mentoring. Most students preferred one-to-one mentoring. Successful mentorship requires personal interaction between two parties. Mentoring is an important tool in career progression of a medical student. A well-planned and goal-oriented mentoring programme benefits the mentees.