Alison Steven

Mentoring for NHS doctors: perceived benefits across the personal-professional interface

Summary Objective To investigate NHS doctors perceived benefits of being involved in mentoring schemes and to explore the overlaps and relationships between areas of benefit. Design Extended qualitative analysis of a multi-site interview study following an interpretivist approach. Setting Six NHS mentoring schemes across England. Main outcome measures Perceived benefits. Results While primary analysis resulted in lists of perceived benefits, the extended analysis revealed three overarching areas: professional practice, personal well-being and development. Benefits appear to go beyond a doctors professional role to cross the personal–professional interface. Problem solving and change management seem to be key processes underpinning the raft of personal and professional benefits reported. A conceptual map was developed to depict these areas and relationships. In addition secondary analysis suggests that in benefitting one area mentoring may lead to consequential benefits in others. Conclusions Prior research into mentoring has mainly taken place in a single health care sector. This multi-site study suggests that the perceived benefits of involvement in mentoring may cross the personal/professional interface and may override organizational differences. Furthermore the map developed highlights the complex relationships which exist between the three areas of professional practice, personal wellbeing and personal and professional development. Given the consistency of findings across several studies it seems probable that organizations would be strengthened by doctors who feel more satisfied and confident in their professional roles as a result of participation in mentoring. Mentoring may have the potential to take us beyond individual limits to greater benefits and the conceptual map may offer a starting point for the development of outcome criteria and evaluation tools for mentoring schemes.

Practice-based interprofessional education: Looking into the black box

This paper reports on part of the evaluation of “The Common Learning Programme in the North East”, which offered practice-based interprofessional education (IPE) to pre-qualification students. A realistic evaluation approach was used and data collection methods included interviews and observations in an attempt to look into “the black box” of practice-based IPE. The contexts of the sessions covered a number of clinical settings and involved a range of participants. Mechanisms included the content of the sessions and the procedures involved. Findings illustrate the complex and unpredictable ways in which discussions arise and evolve during IPE sessions and how interplay exists both between the contexts and the mechanisms, and between knowledge types. Issues are raised regarding the facilitation of IPE and the influence of the current evidence-based movement on research types. This study highlights the complexity and unpredictability of practice-based IPE and the usefulness of research approaches that look into the black box of educational practice.