Mentorship in Medical School Matters

In the high-pressure world of medical school, where every test feels like a life-or-death matter, mentors are the unsung heroes guiding students through the chaos. From late-night study sessions to career-defining advice, these invaluable connections turn ambitious students into confident, compassionate doctors ready to make their mark on the world.

For medical students with mentors, receiving expert advice from a more experienced peer, resident, or attending may serve as a sounding board, allowing students to hone their medical skills, test their limits, and confidently select a future specialty path.

One recent study of peer mentoring programs found that medical students who mentor their peers benefit from improved confidence, well-being, and academic development.

“I don’t think medicine works without mentorship,” Meylakh Barshay, a third-year med student at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, told Medscape Medical News. “It is the lifeblood of the field. It’s impossible to do this journey alone. You need others.”

Mentorship Expectations

Many medical schools and residency programs have formal mentorship programs that pair doctors-in-training with mentors. Other med students find their mentors informally through rotations or networking.

Barshay, 33, experienced mentoring as both a mentor and mentee. On the receiving end of the relationship, his school assigned an attending physician to mentor him throughout medical school. Barshay said the mentor serves as a general sounding board, helping him prioritize his time and make career path decisions, offering a level-headed check and an honest perspective.

When he was a second-year preclinical student, the school paired him with an attending specializing in emergency medicine — a possible career specialty for Barshay — which allowed him to “get my feet wet with hands-on experiences.”

Barshay shadowed the medical director of a level 1 trauma center emergency room exposing him to the inner workings of the hospital’s acute care setting, which would otherwise have been difficult to access as a medical student.

While mentoring others, Barshay said he now serves in similar roles to his mentees, from teaching premeds how to complete applications, ace interviews, or navigate medical school to helping students practice their skills examining patients while offering feedback.

Another third-year medical student, Kathleen McLaughlin, participated as a mentor and mentee in peer-to-peer mentoring offered at the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine in Biddeford, Maine. As part of that program, the college assigns students a mentor in the class ahead of them who can offer guidance, like navigating board exams or choosing rotation sites. “The school provides some assistance, but it’s helpful to hear advice from someone having gone through it recently,” she said.

McLaughlin, 27, had a professor mentor that she found through a school club who helped her decide on a research project and see it through. Her mentor also connected her to professional organizations in specialties she’s considering, such as gerontology and obstetrics/gynecology. “I have a lot of interests. It’s hard to narrow them down without guidance and experience.”

As a mentor to two students in the class behind hers, she mirrors the same type of guidance that her mentor imparted. She notes that mentoring may begin with formal in-person meetings but often transitions to informal text conversations spanning years.

Mentorship Helps Postgraduate Year 1 (PGY1) Residents

PGY1 residents, also known as interns, find that mentoring others helps them reflect on their own career decisions, allows them to pay forward years of mentorship, and pass on their experience to those further down the training ladder.

For the past few years, Daniel Khokhar, DO, has mentored a handful of premeds and med students referred by friends and professors, typically helping them prepare applications to medical school or residency.

“I enjoy it…it reminds me I am always learning and teaching,” said the 26-year-old, training at Lakeland Regional Health in Florida during a transitional year before continuing residency at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore next year. “It keeps me on my toes and excited.”

“Everything is collaborative in medicine. You are always going to be interacting with people, asking for their advice and perspective. It’s good to be comfortable with that early.” He believes those who don’t ask for advice become stagnant. “It’s a good check and balancing of your progress and becoming a better physician, advancing as medicine advances.”

Over the years, his mentors have ranged from an older cousin during premed to friends in medical school, a medical student pursuing the same specialty — physical medicine and rehabilitation — and a professor who held group sessions with his students.

“The biggest value is having a support system,” he said. “He [your mentor] answers questions and offers next steps you may not even know about.”

Making Time for Mentorship

Arya Hawkins-Zafarnia, MD, believes mentoring is most effective when the two parties have similar interests and backgrounds and a solid commitment to the relationship despite the pervasive time crunch. “In med school, you are so busy.” Yet you need to connect and keep communicating. “It’s easier said than done,” said the emergency medicine resident at Yale New Haven Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut.

He told Medscape Medical News that he had a better experience as the recipient of mentoring than being a mentor because those he mentored didn’t always have the maturity to follow through with tasks discussed in mentoring sessions.

Reaping the Benefits

Hawkins-Zafarnia, 35, met his mentor as a premed student at Queens College in New York City. His mentor was a resident in the emergency room at Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital in New York City. “There was one resident who was very interested in teaching.” He invited Hawkins-Zafarnia to put on gloves and help the medical team.

The pair kept in touch as Hawkins-Zafarnia applied to medical school. Later, he was able to return to the hospital to rotate through the emergency room under the mentor’s guidance. “He even helped me develop my rank list.”

“They [mentors] anchor you to their network, and by extension, you have the ability to have a community with network opportunities in medicine and science,” said Hawkins-Zafarnia.

He also cited the emotional value of turning to a mentor with more experience with the financial and practical challenges of medical training. “It’s nice to have a cheerleader, especially at the stages when you have severe imposter syndrome and wonder if you can hack it…it gives you scaffolding by which to measure your development.”

Mentoring others helps med students “clarify our professional development and what we want out of our career,” said Barshay. Having mentors ask questions can make it easier to reprocess and be more reflective about personal and professional decisions. Mentoring helps Barshay think more carefully through the clinical process and workflow. “We learn to see one, do one, teach one.”

Prepare for Mentoring

McLaughlin recommended that students prepare specific questions for their mentor before a session. “I try to ask questions I can’t Google.” That way, you get real value and don’t waste anyone’s time.

If she’s mentoring others, “I try to figure out what they need from me, or if I am being mentored, what I need from them. Sometimes goal setting has helped structure that.”

Hawkins-Zafarnia suggested students ask mentors such questions as: What specialty should I choose, and how do I develop a residency rank list?

Hawkins-Zafarnia said he was very close to not applying to emergency medicine, so for that reason, he believes “a great mentor does not give advice as much as they give you something to think about.”

Barshay cautions against looking to a single mentor to serve all your needs. “A preconception I had was that a mentor would do everything, be a one-stop-shop.” But some mentors might be better suited to clinical pursuits, while others offer general advice.

Khokhar suggested finding a mentor in your specialty who does exactly what you want to do in the future.

To learn more about mentoring, visit the Association of American Medical Colleges’ resources for students and residents.

Roni Robbins is a freelance journalist and former editor for Medscape Business of Medicine. She’s also a freelance health reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Her writing has appeared in WebMD, HuffPost, Forbes, New York Daily News, BioPharma Dive, MNN, Adweek, Healthline, and others. She’s also the author of the multi-award–winning Hands of Gold: One Man’s Quest to Find the Silver Lining in Misfortune.