Mentoring Opportunity with UCR

A NOTE FROM THE RCMA:  The UC Riverside School of Medicine is initiating a mentoring program for first and second year students to help guarantee their success and satisfaction during medical school.  We are asking for your assistance, with minimal time commitment, in making this program a success.  Please see the letter below from Dr. Emma Simmons and the attached mentoring form.  Please consider serving as a mentor to our future doctors.

Dear Physician,

The Student Affairs Office at the UCR School of Medicine is ready to launch a “Faculty Mentoring Program”. We need your professional leadership and clinical expertise to serve as a“Faculty Mentor” to our first and second year medical students.

As the new Associate Dean of Student Affairs, I’ve taken on the role as Director of this new program, and my primary responsibility is to develop academic enrichment programs that help medical students with wellness and balance during their journey to becoming well-rounded physicians. The importance of a mentoring program was apparent after I met with many of our medical students who resoundingly told me that they needed more clinical mentors to assist them in their professional journey. I implore you to remember your time in medical school and how you would have benefited from a program such as this.

As you know, mentoring is simply providing support and advice to an interested student in a way that benefits both the mentee and the mentor. We realize that you are extremely busy so we are suggesting minimal requirements that will hopefully produce maximal results. Please note that this program is not about preceptoring, doctoring or clinical skills training and as such, no formal assessment is necessary. Therefore, participation in this faculty mentoring program should not take a lot of time from your professional or personal practices. This new program will be in place to assist medical students with gaining additional insight into their chosen profession and securing a role model to ask questions and discuss ideas.

We are asking you to offer advice to current students on what you would do differently (or what you did well) during medical school, residency training and in your career, if you were afforded a second chance. The medical students are young and hungry for advice about their careers, balancing family and friends, and life outside of medical school.

Below are some specific guidelines to meet the program objectives:

• The program objectives will be reviewed with the students prior to your first meeting
• To initiate the mentoring process, the student will need to contact you, via the information that you provide on the attached form.
• The meeting length and location can be negotiated by you and your mentee.
• You can also communicate by email or phone at your convenience. You are asked to meet face to face, minimally, twice a year with your mentee
• We will check in with you twice yearly to assess the program.

Mentoring means different things to different people and we are sure that there will be lots of questions during this inaugural period. Therefore, we do plan to have a “Faculty Mentor Introductory Dinner” on January 26th, 2012. During this informal dinner, physician mentors and medical students will meet, interact and learn more about each other’s interests, careers, and/or career goals. This will also be a time where more information about this partnership will be discussed and negotiated. You may still be a mentor even if you are unavailable to meet at the introductory dinner.

If you are willing to mentor a student, please complete the attached form (“UCR Faculty Mentoring Application”) and return it to us by January 13th, 2012. We hope that you will consider helping our students in this important venture. We also ask that you spread the word to your colleagues who you think might also be interested. Please do not hesitate to contact Emma Simmons, MD, MPH, Associate Dean, Student Affairs at UCR School of Medicine, if you have additional questions at emma.simmons@ucr.edu or (951) 827-7663.

Thank you for your time and consideration.