Implementation and first experiences with a multimodal mentorship curriculum for medicine-paediatrics residents

Introduction: Mentorship increases trainee productivity, promotes career satisfaction and reduces burnout. Beginning in 2016, our Medicine-Paediatrics residency program developed and implemented a longitudinal mentorship curriculum among trainees. We report initial experiences with that program and discuss potential future directions. Curriculum structure and method of implementation: We implemented and adapted a peer mentorship model and expanded it to include guest lectures and workshops centred around 13 core topics. Our expanded model included five longitudinal components: (1) peer mentorship; (2) virtual check-ins with residency leadership; (3) focussed didactics and workshops; (4) small-group dinners highlighting different career paths; and (5) dedicated faculty who pair residents with mentors based on common interests. We compared annual survey results on resident satisfaction with program mentorship, using chi-square and fisher’s exact tests to assess statistically significant differences pre- (2012–2016) and post-intervention (2016–2020). Results: We analysed 112 responses with annual response rate varying between 41.2% and 100%. Overall satisfaction with mentorship improved from 57.6% to 73.4% (p =.53), satisfaction with emotional support improved from 63.1% to 71.6% (p =.21), and satisfaction with career-specific mentorship improved from 48.5% to 59.5% (p =.70). Residents reported consistently high satisfaction with peer mentorship (77.8%–100%). The percent of residents reporting they had identified a career mentor increased from 60.0% in 2017 to 88.9% in 2019, which was sustained at 90.0% in 2020. Conclusion: We report our experience in implementing and adapting a mentorship curriculum for resident physicians in a single training program, including transitioning to a primarily online-based platform at the outset of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Our results showed a trend towards improvement in resident satisfaction with overall and career-specific mentorship, as well as improved emotional support. Future work is needed using more objective outcome markers among a larger and more diverse group of residents. KEY MESSAGES Among resident physicians in a single training program, a mix of mentor–mentee dyads, group-based peer mentoring and a structured curriculum has shown promise in improving resident-reported satisfaction with programmatic mentorship While we attempted to adapt the mentorship curriculum to an online platform with the development of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, reported satisfaction in overall mentorship and emotional support decreased in comparison to the prior year, an important focus for future work.