Mentorship program in a tertiary care private medical college of Eastern India: evaluation, appraisal and recommendations (Preprint)
BACKGROUND Mentorship programs are becoming increasingly common in undergraduate medical education all over the world. However, very few medical colleges are running mentorship programs in India. A mentorship program was introduced in our college for the first year MBBS students to help them cope up with the stress of the new environment. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study is to evaluate the mentorship program with regard to its efficacy, utility, limitation and potential for improvement after successful completion of one year of the program. METHODS It was an observational analytical study including 143 mentees and 15 mentors conducted in a tertiary care teaching hospital for five months from November 2019 to March 2020. Two sessions of FGD were carried out involving 7 students in each session. One session of FGD was conducted involving 7 mentors. The feedback was collected with a pre validated questionnaire containing 10 questions (8 close ended and 2 open ended). Feedback of closed ended questions were obtained by using a 5-point Likert scale (1 to 5) where 5 indicated ‘Strongly Agree’ and 1 indicated ‘Strongly Disagree’ RESULTS Most of the mentees (86.7%) and mentors (66.7%) mentioned that mentorship program is necessary for the welfare of the students. However, it was also noted that better communication and frequent meetings can improve the outcome of the program. CONCLUSIONS Mentorship program is deemed essential, however, a well-structured framework and dedicated time from both mentors and mentees will make the program more successful. This type of feedback evaluation is however important to validate such program.