Shireen Suliman, Ahmed Al-Mohammed, Dabia Al Mohanadi, Margaret Allen, Carma L Bylund

Mentoring plays a vital role in academic productivity, personal development, and career guidance for students, residents, fellows, and junior faculty. A culture of mentoring is spreading across residency and fellowship training programs in Hamad Medical Corporation, the main teaching tertiary care facility in Qatar. However, there is insufficient knowledge about the current practice of mentoring in these programs. We conducted a cross-sectional study by surveying all faculty and trainees in all residency and fellowship training programs in Qatar. Each completed a web-based questionnaire that asked about the current experience, self-efficacy and measures of improvement of the current practice of mentoring across training programs. A total of 393/650 faculty members (61%), 187/250 fellows (74%), and 405/650 residents (62%) responded to the two surveys. Most (74% of faculty members) reported being current mentors, while 67% of residents and fellows reported that they currently have mentors. Faculty who received training in mentoring and those who had an established formal mentoring program in their departments were more likely to enroll in mentoring than others (86%, P<0.01; 71%, P<0.05%, respectively). Trainees suggested that the two main areas to improve the current mentoring initiative in their departments were to develop a structured mentoring program and to train the mentors. Content analysis revealed participants' confusion differentiating between the terms mentoring and supervision. Based on the current study, many existing mentoring relationships have an evident confusion between supervision and mentoring roles. Developing structured mentoring program and training both faculty and trainees in mentoring is recommended to improve the current practice of mentoring within the training programs.