
Consultant Surgeon (rtd),
Educator, Mentor & Coach
BSc (hons), MBBS, MRCS, LRCP, FRCS, MS,
PG dip Med.Ed
Mr Terry offers Mentoring & Coaching for Surgeons and Surgical Trainees regarding Career Development & Advice, Turning Points in a Medical Career, Retirement and GMC issues
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Let's Connect
Text Only : 07876 506519
EMail : grsterry@aol.com
LinkedIn : Tim Terry
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Why Introduce Mentoring?
Mentoring helps maintain clinical resilience if used early enough which is dependent on Surgeons using regular reflective practice aligned to their emotional agility so that insight and self-awareness may prompt self-referral to a trained mentor.
Self-awareness directs the Surgeon to ask, ‘how do I feel’ and ‘why do I feel the way I do’. Feelings of professional unhappiness or discomfiture need to be resolved urgently to prevent the development of high levels of burnout from which recovery may be problematic for the Surgeon, their NHS Institution, Private Practice and their patients.
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In todays demanding practice building healthy surgical teams and investing in the future of our healthcare system is critical.
How can you introduce Mentoring into an Organisation?
Methods of Mentoring:
Mentoring is an established relationship for the purposes of learning and personal, professional or career development. Formalised mentoring has taken place in many membership organisations to support and facilitate the growth of individuals over the last 3 decades.
Organisations can utilise mentoring for the purpose of educating and managing issues arising from work-based stress for their members.
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Different types of mentoring that can help achieve different objectives.
Informal mentoring is a mentoring relationship that evolves organically, almost like a friendship. Colleagues, family members and friends can all be informal mentors; they are people you turn to for advice or to challenge you.
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In contrast, formal mentoring is typically an organised program which matches people with mentors who can help them towards a developmental goal or target. Formal mentoring in organisations is naturally fairer and more inclusive.
10 Differing and Beneficial methods of mentoring
1. Leadership Development
​Mentoring is a great way of developing leadership skills in individuals. Other Consultant leaders can pass on their knowledge and key learnings to somebody less experienced or somebody who is about to enter a leadership role. Sharing challenges and facilitating a support system of leaders is an effective way of training people
2. Induction / On-Boarding
​Starting a new career and Rotation can be daunting, and depending on the size of the hospitals, those first few days can end up being chaotic, confusing, and disappointing. Organisations can use mentoring to on-board their new doctors, pairing them with someone who can show them the ropes in a friendly and relatable way.
3. Graduates
​ Similarly, graduate specific mentoring is a highly effective way of making grads feel welcome, supported, and aspirational. This type of program is particularly relevant considering that 43% of millennials leave their jobs within their first two years. Young people have high expectations of their working lives, and so investing in their development will go a long way.
4. Women in Surgery
​Many organisations are utilising mentoring to support and empower women in their careers. With a lack of gender parity in senior leadership roles across the majority of organisations worldwide, efforts need to be made to promote upward mobility for women. Mentoring can guide and inspire women at crucial stages of their careers, helping to create a stronger career pipeline for women within Medical Fraternities.
5. Equality, Diversity, Inclusion
Mentoring can support diversity and inclusion efforts within organisations. To tackle diversity imbalance, individuals from an under-represented group can be mentored and supported, which has proven to improve minority representation at a specialised level. In addition, mentoring can help foster a culture of inclusion where everybody is equally factored.
6. Succession Planning
​ Similar to leadership development, mentoring for succession planning involves identifying high performing individuals and prepping them via mentorship for senior Consultant roles within the organisation. This creates a talent pipeline throughout the business, and the potential successors receive first-hand information and support.
7. Knowledge Retention
​ Similarly, as the mature Consultants and Professors in your organisation near retirement, it is important to ensure their medical knowledge and experience is not lost. By establishing a knowledge retention / sharing mentoring program, you can facilitate the passing down of this information across every facet of the membership, as well as build effective communication in the process.
8. Maternity & Paternity Mentoring
Both preparing for maternity / paternity leave, and then returning to work afterwards, can be really difficult. Establishing a mentoring program where senior working-parents, who have already been through the process, mentor new working-parents, is highly valuable for their mental health, job satisfaction and happiness. Similarly, connecting new parents in group or peer to peer mentoring to share experiences is very valuable.
9. Skill Sharing
​Mentoring can feed into up-skilling initiatives in membership organisations. If a group need to increase their skill in a certain area, they can be assigned mentors who already possess that knowledge and experience to help them get there. This is typically seen with digital skills within organisation.
10. Transitional Periods
​ Another beneficial use of mentoring in organisations is really during any time of change or transition. Whether it is new hospital management, a structure overhaul, rotation etc, mentoring can help re-establish a culture of community across the membership organisation in a short period of time.