According to Colley (2003: 30): “Although the past 25 years have produced a vast amount of academic literature on mentoring, it has failed to achieve any consensus” [in defining mentoring]. Nevertheless, there is agreement about some key aspects. The following definition, adopted by Mentoring Australia (2000), reflects widely acccepted key elements of mentoring: “mentoring is a mutually benefic...

Although previous studies have offered empirical and anecdotal support for academic mentoring, there are still considerable gaps in understanding the specific actions or components that are present in these relationships. Research has shown that academic faculty mentors provide all of Kram’s (1988) mentoring functions to their graduate student protégés. Despite numerous claims to the presence o...

Mentoring in academic medicine has been shown to contribute to the success of junior faculty, resulting in increased productivity, career satisfaction, and opportunities for networking. Although traditional dyadic mentoring, involving one senior faculty member and one junior protégé, is the dominant model for mentoring in the academic environment, there is increasing recognition that the sharin...

Mentoring of students to assist them in the transition to clinical practice has been utilized in a number of health professions but has only been recently introduced in dental and dental hygiene education. A survey was sent to all U.S. dental hygiene program directors to determine the prevalence of mentoring programs in the dental hygiene curriculum that utilize practicing dental hygienists as ...

Mentoring relationships occur across a range of nursing contexts and are shown to have multiple, favourable personal and professional outcomes. Specifically, mentoring has been associated with the development of nurse leaders. This study describes features that are integral to initiating mentoring relationships that focus on nursing leader development. These significant features are addressed i...

Objective. The aim of this study was to describe and analyze the correlations between mentoring functions and political skill development among nurses who have earned or are candidates for a Ph.D. or doctorate of nursing practice (DNP) degree. Background. The healthcare system is in flux; future generations of Ph.D. and DNP nurse leaders will be required to demonstrate political acumen. Politic...

This paper considers the potential benefits of electronic industrial mentoring as a retention strategy for women studying engineering and related sciences. It describes four structured electronic mentoring programs, each of which offers a model for such a retention strategy, and presents a conceptual plan to develop a national electronic industrial mentoring program to serve students at any

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) has been identified as a useful strategy to overcome disparities in minority elders. However, little consensus exists with respect to appropriate CBPR training and mentoring mechanisms. In this paper, we summarize the mentoring activities in each of the six currently funded Resource Centers on Minority Aging Research (RCMAR). In addition to mentorin...

This summary reviews the research conducted on youth mentoring programs from the mid-1980s through the late 1990s. A number of studies have documented the varied benefits youth derive through participation in programmatic mentoring ranging from improved relationships to a reduction in the initiation of drug and alcohol use. Not all mentors or mentoring programs, however, are equally effective. ...

The experience and lessons learned in the design, implementation and initial evaluation of a demonstration faculty-to-faculty mentoring program, during a time of major institutional reorganization, are described. The question addressed was: Can a voluntary mentoring program be established with minimal resources and be effective in the context of major organizational change? Key design elements ...