The following is a summary of “Knowledge Gap: Mentorship in Emergency Medicine Residency,” published in the July 2023 issue of Emergency Medicine by Sobel et al.

Research conducted on mentorship in emergency medicine has revealed that residents who receive mentorship are twice as likely to perceive their career preparation as excellent compared to their counterparts who do not have mentors. There has been considerable attention given to the mentor-mentee dynamic within the field of medicine; moreover, there needs to be more guidance and published literature specifically about residents in emergency medicine. In this narrative review, researchers elucidated the emergency medicine mentor–mentee relationship, deliberated on alternatives to the conventional dyadic model, and underscored prevailing obstacles to proficient mentorship.

A structured literature review was conducted to identify pertinent published articles about the mentorship of emergency medicine residents. Additional studies from the general medical literature were included based on relevancy. Researchers have identified 39 studies in the emergency medicine literature according to the researcher’s search criteria. Additional studies from the medical literature were included based on their relevance to this review. Based on the limited existing medical literature, researchers suggest optimizing the resident mentoring relationship through the establishment of structured mentoring initiatives, promoting the progress of female and underrepresented minority mentors, and transitioning towards a team-based mentoring approach that encompasses peer, near-peer, and collaborative mentorship.

Establishing a mentoring network is a rational approach for residents to collaborate with a heterogeneous cohort of individuals to optimize advantages across various domains. Alternative methodologies to the conventional and hierarchical dyadic mentoring style (e.g., team mentoring) are efficacious techniques residencies may endorse to enhance effective mentoring. Future endeavors in mentoring emergency medicine residents underscore these approaches, which are progressively advantageous considering the limitations and utilization of technology accentuated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0196064423000409