Beginning on the first day of medical school, osteopathic physicians practice a “hands-on” approach to patient care. Learning and developing patient care skills is a process during which students acquire knowledge and develop an understanding of the context for applying this medical knowledge to each individual and unique situation.
Mentoring relationships play a vital role in providing “context” for all of the “content” that students must master in medical school. These mentoring relationships are integral to shaping the way medical students approach patient care and understand the complexities of medical practice.
“Throughout the millennia of medical arts being passed from one generation to the next, a key element is the relationship between the physician-teacher and the physician-student,” explained Michelle Hobson, DO, underscoring the historical significance of mentoring in medicine as an essential part of the educational process for future physicians.
According to Dahlin Jackson, medical student and OMM Scholar at PCOM Georgia, mentors are part of the educational process from day one.
“Before even getting into medical school, student leadership partners you up with a second-year medical student and this second-year medical student will help follow you along from your first year up until your third year of medical school once they graduate,” Jackson explained.
The mentors, he added, assist medical students as they begin medical school and acclimate to the environment. This early mentoring in medicine provides students with a guiding hand to navigate the rigorous academic and clinical demands of medical education.
As a student’s medical education journey continues, mentors can provide valuable insight.
“I think mentorship here is really cool because you get to see a lot of different levels of medicine being practiced,” said Azalech Hinton, a member of the Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine Class of 2024 at PCOM Georgia. “You have the students that are a few classes ahead of you and then you also have residents and then eventually attendings and our professors, so you get to talk to a lot of different people who are in a lot of different stages in their medical education and they all have a different perspective and all have different things that they’d like to encourage you to do.”
This multi-level approach to mentoring in medicine allows students to gain insights from peers, residents, attendings, and professors, each offering a unique perspective. By engaging with mentors at various stages of the medical education continuum, students benefit from a diverse range of experiences, advice, and encouragement.
These mentors help shape the mentee’s approach to patient care and can help promote a desire to pass on knowledge to others.
“As a physician, one becomes part of a legacy of multi-generational learning,” said William Delp, DO. “We are given the opportunity to ‘pay it forward’ to the next generation of physicians. We share our successes and caution about our failures, accepting our limitations, and encouraging others to ’do better’ as we continue to serve humanity.”
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