Mentees' perception of a newly introduced formal mentoring programme for final year undergraduate medical students – A pilot study

Introduction: Many of us are still unclear about the true meaning of 'Mentoring'. Medicine as a profession is gradually becoming increasingly complex and fragmented. Medical colleges admit hundreds of students every year with the number of MBBS seats in some of the colleges touching 250. Formal mentoring programmes are virtually non-existent in most medical colleges and where functional, are focussed towards day to day administrative issues faced by the students rather than towards their holistic development as a professional. Materials and Methods: A formal mentoring programme was introduced in the college in July 2018 and student mentees were allotted to individual faculty mentors. The present study details the experiences of the department of General Medicine. 2 faculty from the department were designated as mentors. The department published a detailed schedule for the mentoring sessions. On any given day, 2 sessions were held between 1000 hrs and 1030 hrs with each session lasting 15 minutes. A total of 7 such rounds were conducted between July and November 2018. At the end of the final session, the students were asked to fill the pre-validated feedback form. Results: The mentees perceived the mentorship sessions positively. Most mentees agreed that their mentors demonstrated reasonable concern towards them and that they were able to discuss both academic and non-academic issues with their respective mentors. Importantly, a large majority of mentees agree that after attending the sessions, they were able to harness their own positive attributes and start working towards attaining their goals with greater confidence.