LAUSR

Faculty mentoring programs in academic medicine have benefits that range from the individual to the institution and are important to maintain especially during challenging times. Some benefits of faculty mentoring include an enhanced collegial academic culture [1, 2], improved career satisfaction [3–5], increased faculty retention, decreased time to promotion [1, 2, 5, 6], reduced burnout [7], and increased faculty research productivity [1, 3, 4, 8, 9]. Research shows that effective mentors are altruistic in their motivations, exhibit honesty and trustworthiness, and engage in active listening [10].Mentees who derive maximum benefit earnestly participate in the mentoring relationship, take initiative, have clearly defined objectives, and are open to receiving and incorporating feedback [11]. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, both mentors and mentees faced unprecedented uncertainty. As priorities shift and stressors become chronic, the mentoring relationship risks marginalization. However, during these times mentoring needs to remain an important, proactive activity that should not function as crisis management but rather adopt new meaning and adapt to increasing complexities. How does a mentor continue to serve as an effective role model when prior experience from which to draw upon does not exist? Both mentors and mentees have been forced to manage new relational dynamics in an attempt to maintain fidelity to the purpose of the mentoring process, and understanding the psychological responses to stress in both the mentor and mentee can frame how these dynamics may shift in a beneficial manner. In this commentary, we consider changes within mentoring in academic medicine during the COVID-19 pandemic. We outline several facets of the mentoring process that have been affected by COVID-19, and describe ways mentoring relationships may evolve to respond to these issues. Since the beginning of COVID, several articles have been published offering guidance on how to improve mentoring techniques, such as the importance of maintaining nurturing and consistent mentor-mentee relationships, displaying transparency regarding personal struggles, maintaining active and open communication, acknowledging challenges, and engaging in reflective practices [12–17]. The current paper adds to the literature by expanding on psychological perspectives in order to offer additional suggestions for managing the mentoring relationship during unprecedented times.