Think about it! The North American Menopause Society Mentorship Program.

MEET THE NAMS MENTORSHIP PROGRAM The idea of a Mentorship Program sponsored by The North American Menopause Society (NAMS) was hatched during a brainstorming session of the NAMS Research Affairs (RAF) Committee in 2008. The question on the table was how to increase the quantity and quality of menopause research and at the same time support or launch early careers in research. Pauline M. Maki, PhD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, suggested pairing an experienced investigator (a mentor) with a member just beginning a research career or considering a hypothesis (a mentee). The concept was that each 2-year mentor/ mentee term would conclude with the presentation of their collaborative research at the NAMS Annual Meeting and ultimate publication in a scientific journal, preferably Menopause. Nurtured significantly by the Chair of the RAF, J. Mark Cline, DVM, PhD, DACVP, Professor of Pathology (Comparative Medicine) at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, the program was launched less than a year after its conception. Details of the program are available on the NAMS Web site at http://www.menopause.org/mentorship.aspx. The initial publicity about the program attracted a large number of senior investigators who volunteered their time and energy to be mentors. The matching process then began with the solicitation of mentee applicants who ranked their mentor choices by their own areas of interest. The potential mentors then ranked the mentee candidates. The first mentormentee class (2009) of six pairs all got their first choices; they met at the NAMS Annual Meeting in San Diego. The second class (2010) of four pairs recently met in Chicago. Because the pairs are geographically separated, regular telephone and email conversations are required, and face-to-face interactions at the NAMS Annual Meetings are strongly encouraged. As a member of the RAF, I set out to interview each mentor/ mentee pair in the inaugural year of the Mentorship Program and began with PaulineMaki and her menteeMiriam T.Weber, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Departments of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and Neurology at the University of Rochester. Subsequent interviews will appear in future issues of Menopause.