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Reverse Mentoring
Traditional mentoring involves the education and sponsorship of junior colleagues by senior colleagues who are already advanced in their career and leadership position. Reverse mentoring inverts the paradigm with junior colleagues mentoring the senior staff, in this instance, junior doctors will act as mentors to senior doctors with the aim of addressing differential attainment. This will involve inviting postgraduate/trainee UK and International medical graduates from ethnic minority backgrounds to pair with trainers or consultants from all other ethnic backgrounds for a period of 6 months in-order to mentor trainers/consultants on their lived experiences of training as an individual from an ethnic minority background.
Benefits for trainees: Share your journey and experiences with senior colleagues who want to learn and facilitate important conversations.
Benefits for trainers: Improve your understanding of trainee experiences to improve medical education.
Register your interest for the Reverse Mentoring scheme here.
What are the benefits of Reverse Mentoring?
Similar reverse mentoring work has been introduced in other industries and organisations including digital technology companies and the beauty industries. There are envisaged benefits for the participating trainee mentors, the senior staff mentees, and for the NHS on an organisational level. The scheme aims to embed the experiences of minority ethnic team members within the leadership consciousness of the NHS. It offers an opportunity to explore discussions on race in a safe space, and challenge systemic biases, thereby promoting a more inclusive training culture.
In addition to effecting positive changes on an organisational level, the participating trainee mentors also learn from the experiences and leadership journey of their paired senior consultant / trainer mentee. Mentors will also develop professional networks, gain career development insights and a more intimate understanding of how training works. We hope that this project will mirror the success of similar schemes in which participants valued the close relationships that formed between the mentor & mentee and lead to bi-directional learning. Differential attainment is now a priority item in our organisation’s agenda and is a personal priority for our leaders.
How the Scheme Works:
After recruiting mentors and mentees through a short survey, a pairing exercise will be carried out to match trainers/senior colleagues and trainees/junior colleagues with compatible goals. Other considerations for matching are preferred speciality and place of employment as indicated in the responses to the survey questions. Mentors and mentees will be matched on MentorNet with bi-directional access to paired participants profiles enabled.
We anticipate that mentor-mentee meetings will occur approximately every 4-6 weeks over a period of 6 months (4 or 6 meetings) with each meetings lasting around 60 minutes.
Prior to the first mentoring meeting, there will be a parallel ‘kick-off’ or induction event for mentors and mentees. Mentors will participate in mentoring training, get an overview of the scheme and meet to share their stories, goals and ask questions whilst mentees will also explore any questions or expectations around the scheme as well as discuss equality, diversity and inclusive themes like allyship and privilege. This will also be an opportunity for mentees to network.
During the mentoring period there will be group supervision for reverse mentors to share ideas, experiences, discuss any challenges and support one another. For the mentees (senior colleagues/consultants or trainers), there will be a mid-term review with opportunity to pick a suitable date out of the two scheduled meeting dates. At the end of the 6-month reverse mentoring period, the project will culminate in a ‘wrap-up’ session where participants come together to reflect on what has been learned and achieved. Guidance will be provided throughout the process.
As far possible, our aim is to structure participation within salaried ‘work time’ rather than asking that mentors & mentees sacrifice personal time. By aiming to hold mentoring sessions four to six weeks apart, there is some opportunity to make use of study or professional leaves to participate within working hours. NHS England (WT&E) will provide mentors with a letter from the Dean to support their professional leave.
We recognise that given a high level of interest in this project we may be unable to pair every interested mentor or mentee. If there are more applicants than required for the mentoring pool, we will select purely on the pairing exercise described above. For those we are unable to pair, we hope to offer further opportunity to participate in the reverse mentoring in the next cohort, as we continue to offer this mentoring opportunity within the Deanery.
Reverse Mentoring Timeline Example
The fourth cohort commenced from November 2023 to June 2024.
- Recruit Mentors and Mentees - September / October 2023
- Match Mentors and Mentees – October 2023
- Mentor / Mentee Induction Sessions – November 2023
- Mentoring session every 4-6 weeks with organised group supervision for mentors and mid-term review for mentees.
- Joint Learning / Sharing Session – June 2024
All recruitment were actioned through email correspondence from the professional support team. The mentoring was supported on the MentorNet platform.
Other Support
- Induction separately held for mentors and mentees.
- Group supervision for mentors / trainees as a reflective space with date options.
- Mid-term review for mentees/trainers with date options.
- Joint ending/closing session for both mentees and mentors.
- Informal supervision with project facilitators as needed.
- Letter of support for study leave.
- Participation letters signed from the deanery.
Resources to be provided
- Mentor Handbook
- Mentee Handbook
Mentor: Dr Kikelomo Olagunju
Mentee: Dr Sherena Nair
Summary report from our Reverse Mentoring Programme 2022/2023
We met on a few occasions to discuss the experiences of BAME doctors, and what it has been like for Kike as an international medical graduate working in the NHS. I too, came as an IMG almost 16 years ago, and therefore understand the challenges doctors like us face, working within the healthcare sector.
Initial meeting: Introduction session
Some of the key issues we identified:
- Settling down initially – and understanding how the system works at work, but also the general information about housing, access to schools for children, visa arrangements to name a few
- The importance of a support network – religious, cultural, peers and colleagues
- The ‘integration’ into a western way of living, and the psycho-social differences that arise from different experiences, including cultural and religious differences
- The ‘ethnic minority’ doctor complex: where we feel we need to work harder than others who have trained in the UK, to prove ourselves that we are just as competent and are deserving of the training and recruitment opportunities
- Being honest and transparent about the fact that racism does exist and how to navigate around his
Mid-point meeting: This was an interesting meeting because we discussed some practical tips to support IMG doctors facing difficulties at work
- Discussed some of my concerns with current doctors I am supervising, and how to support them better
- Some of these doctors were not performing as expected, and I needed to understand why this was including examining my perceptions and biases, unrealistic expectations placed on these IMGs, and strategies of how best I can support them
- We came up with some practical tips – how to give feedback, ensure there is insight, support any issues around training and development, developing confidence and leadership skills, providing IMGs with tools to succeed in training, signposting them to services that exist
- How to get access to all the key competencies required for training applications
End-of-project meeting: Reflection of more complex issues that an IMG might face
- We discussed the role of religion in one’s life and how this might be important
- Also discussed more complex issues such as LGBTQIA+ which may not be familiar or comfortable for IMGs due to their cultural beliefs and how to overcome this – discussed being inclusive, and ensuring that we remain non-judgmental despite personal beliefs that may have an impact on patient care
- Discussed why leadership positions within the NHS are not always representative of the diversity that exists within the NHS