For a beginner, the path to creating a professional identity and building an ideal career is often fraught with challenges. There are moments of doubt, ambiguity, and change. This dynamic process is necessary and important to discovering a career path that leads to fulfillment and growth. One of the most effective ways to calm the turmoil is to have a mentor who will guide, advise, and offer the benefit of perspective. Effective mentoring has been shown to be critical to the development and success of professionals regardless of industry. Various mentoring studies have shown improvements in job satisfaction, leadership quality, protocol effectiveness, and even health care outcomes. Mentoring programs for healthcare providers have been created to increase sustainability and continuity of care.
For example, this has been done for providers treating underserved populations in rural America and underdeveloped countries. In both situations, mentors have helped less experienced practitioners to offset the unique challenges of the practice. These include dealing with limitations in access to healthcare professionals and services, dealing with an expanded scope of practice, and dealing with feelings of isolation. But mentoring is not exclusively for rural professionals. Dentists can benefit from the advice of someone who has experienced pain in any situation and possibly at any stage in their career.
What makes mentoring effective?
There are certain elements that create a mentoring relationship – As those of us who have experienced a bad relationship with mentors know. This is due to two main factors: the compatibility of the two people and the match of their experiences and goals. Having a mentor and mentee who have compatible personalities helps build a relationship and creates a sense of psychological security for the mentee. This helps create value for both people. However, it is not enough to have matching personalities. The path of the mentor and the goals of the mentee should be good enough to create a shared experience from which the mentee can benefit.
How do you find the right mentor?
One of the biggest mistakes young professionals make is finding or choosing a mentor that fits their needs. This approach to professional development is short-sighted. It is unrealistic to expect that a mentor can and has the time to guide a young dentist through all the challenges that a career can bring. It is best to have three to five mentors when questions arise and are able to direct them to the right mentor based on experience. If you are a young athlete, a needs-based assessment is a productive way to assess how many mentoring relationships should be pursued and nurtured.
Write down your career goals over the next year, five years, and 10 years. Then make another list of the resources you need to achieve those goals. Where are your blind spots? What information do you need to learn to achieve your goals? What weaknesses do you need to eliminate to achieve your goals? The creation of this list is intended to show the gaps in knowledge. Each gap can be addressed by a different mentor. For example, If you’re looking to open your own practice in the next two years but find that one of your biggest gaps is business acumen, you need to find a suitable mentor. Maybe you’re a dentist who owns your own business, or maybe you’re not a dentist at all. The mentor should be able to point you to resources that can teach you how to read an income statement, help you learn hiring and firing techniques, and give you leadership books to help you develop. Finally, if that person is someone who is not a dentist, such as B. a small business owner or someone outside of dentistry with an MBA, she also needs to find a dentist who can specifically deal with issues related to the dental business.
One of the great things about having multiple mentors is the added benefit of multiple sources of accountability. When you build strong and meaningful partnerships with your various mentors and effectively communicate your expectations and goals, you can truly build a team of people who can work with you to pave your path to success. Multiple mentors will address blind spots from different perspectives and your collective advice can be more efficient in creating a comprehensive and accurate worldview.
How do you build a solid mentorship?
The most common challenge mentor-based relationships face is that sustainability. Effort and plan can quickly fizzle out even the best-intentioned tutoring. How can you avoid this common trap? Creating sustainable tutorials is doable with certain intentionality. At the beginning of every mentoring relationship, the first meeting should be used to communicate needs, outline expectations, and define goals. Investing the time is critical to ensure both people get the most value. If possible for a long team partnership, A plan must be made many trainees to come to the first coffee meeting with a blank sheet of paper and with an open mind. While both are valuable tools, this “I’m ready” approach is not only impractical, but it’s also ineffective. Young mentees need to realize that the responsibility for creating value lies with the mentee, not the mentor. The need for communication and reasonable expectations are an absolute must for strong mentoring. The mentee should start a conversation that clearly defines how often he or she will communicate with them and what are the best resources the mentor can offer. What are the specific goals of the professional? How will the mentor provide guidance? What does each individual need to do in order to feel that this is a productive working relationship?
What should your focus on to create value?
When approaching mentoring conversations, the entry-level professional should focus on the following elements to create value.
Professional Identity: As new dentists, we often think we know what we want from our career: Owe our own practices, have the right practice modality, see ideal patient populations, Etc. But these elements are dynamic and depend on who we are as individuals and doctors. The first years of a health professional’s life should be largely focused on finding and defining professional identity. Ask yourself questions like these:
- Who do I want to help?
- What do I want as a legacy?
- What has to happen for me to be satisfied with my work?
- What problems do I want to solve with my life’s work?
We’re often so focused on finding the right job or paying off school debt that we don’t use that discernment about our careers and do ourselves a disservice of the answers is a powerful tool to find fulfillment in our careers.
Accompany further training and development: Your commitment to a health professional makes you a lifelong learner. But often and especially right after completing formal education, continuing education can be daunting. Recommending courses, Identifying knowledge gaps, and creating a conscious study plan can be critical to success.
