title: Assessment of an anesthesiology academic department mentorship program.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Mentorship is perceived as important for academic department development. The purpose of this study was to survey physicians in an academic anesthesiology department before and after the initiation of a formal mentorship program to evaluate the impact of the program over a 1-year period.
  
  
  METHODS
  The effectiveness of establishing a mentorship program to promote career advancement was prospectively and anonymously evaluated by 52 anesthesiologists in an academic, tertiary care facility with a large residency program (>130 residents). We asked these physicians to complete a questionnaire on mentorship 2 weeks prior to and 3 months and 12 months after the establishment of the mentorship program. We used data from 26 (50%) participants who completed all 3 surveys to evaluate the impact of the formal mentorship program.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Baseline survey results revealed that the majority of anesthesiologists (71%) in our academic, tertiary care facility believed that mentoring was important/very important, but only 46% indicated that mentoring had been an important/very important contribution in their careers. Overall, the respondents' ratings of mentorship importance over the 1-year period did not increase despite the establishment of a formal program.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We present the first known study that sequentially followed physician evaluations of mentorship importance after the establishment of a mentorship program within an academic anesthesiology department. Study participants considered allotted, structured time for the mentors and mentees to focus on mentorship activities as necessary to provide the best opportunity for program success according to the general informal consensus of the participants in the study.
authors.affiliation: Departments of General Anesthesiology and Outcomes Research, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH.
authors.forename: Ehab
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Farag
authors.forename: Alaa A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Abd-Elsayed
authors.forename: Edward J
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Mascha
authors.forename: Jerome F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: O'Hara