Addressing the needs and challenges of mentorship in veterinary medicine

Abstract

Veterinary medicine provides a rewarding career but is met with a high degree of mental, emotional, and physical fatigue and, as a result, professional burnout. A structured mentoring system in veterinary schools is integral to promoting well‐being as well as professional and personal growth for resilience and lifelong learning. While professional programs (e.g., human medicine, nursing, dentistry, pharmacy) often provide mentorship opportunities, program descriptions, and evidence of effectiveness have limited review in the literature, especially for veterinary medicine. Depending on the individual's professional stage, mentor and mentee roles may be established throughout one's career between a faculty mentor and a veterinary student early in the curriculum, between near‐peer students, between a private practitioner and new graduate, between a faculty mentor and house officers (interns/residents), and others. Mentorship of junior faculty by senior faculty is also important to nurture successful retention, professional growth, and promotion. With all of these relationships, expectations should be developed between the mentor and mentee to achieve mutual benefit from the relationship.While instituting a mentoring program is beneficial, not all programs are created equal. To ensure a successful program, faculty must be trained to effectively mentor veterinary and graduate students. With adequate training, more seasoned students could also provide peer mentorship to less experienced students. Consideration should be given to how mentors and mentees are matched, recognizing that pairings based on core interests may strengthen foundational relationships. Effective mentoring relationships would ensure continued support for mentees as they develop in the years following graduation. With this article, we present the opportunities and challenges for mentoring within veterinary medicine, including a review of the literature.