Abstract
Receiving guidance and help from mentors is an essential component of career development and planning, especially in academic medicine and biomedical research, where the availability of resources and job opportunities are becoming more challenging. Mentors share their wisdom, experience, content expertise, and networks with mentees to provide ideas and feedback, identify and open opportunities, deal with problems and avoid mistakes, and especially to assist in evaluating the many personal and professional factors involved in decision making about career paths and job options. Identifying, engaging, and utilizing mentors appropriately is a key part of career development, and effective mentorship can come from several sources, including personal interactions, passive role models, and artificial intelligence. Providing mentorship is an important responsibility that includes various risks and benefits that should be clearly understood before the role of mentor is undertaken. Moreover, mentors should carefully assess whom to accept as a mentee by considering the time, skills, and interest needed to meet their own expectations along with those of their prospective mentees. With increasing awareness of the value of mentorship, more academic health centers, medical schools, and departments provide programs to help their students, trainees, faculty, and staff better access, understand, and take advantage of mentorship opportunities, as well as offer programs to enhance the skills and abilities of those interested in being effective mentors.
Graphical abstract
Successful individuals usually acknowledge that the advice and assistance they received from mentors were key to their achievements and advancement.1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Traditional mentors include teachers, supervisors, senior colleagues, and leaders who are interested in developing a highly interactive counseling relationship to support their mentees' personal and professional growth and career success. These mentors often include experts in one's field and they, along with mentors from other areas, provide guidance and help in addressing professional activities, making career choices, and dealing with issues and opportunities. They also use their knowledge, skills, abilities, and experience to help mentees evaluate behavior and achievements, increase self-awareness and boost confidence, consider new ideas, and set appropriate goals, priorities, and expectations. Moreover, mentors use their influence and contacts to advocate, sponsor, give references, and make recommendations for their mentees, and can be particularly helpful for those from groups that have been underrepresented in academic medicine and from disadvantaged backgrounds.6, 7, 8
Personal and Professional Factors in Career Development
Successful career development is highly dependent on continuous learning, adaptability, and making the best choices about career paths and professional opportunities. These decisions typically include a wide range of both personal and professional determinants. Personal determinants begin with one's background, such as education, training, skills, strengths, weaknesses, and experience. These factors help define motivational factors such as personal interests, goals, and priorities, as well as activities that provide joy and satisfaction. Additional personal considerations in career decision making include family and friends, the local environment, and desired work–life balance. Together, these personal factors narrow down potential career paths and options that are likely to be successful and rewarding.
The professional factors that influence decisions about career paths and opportunities are usually more objective than the personal ones. These include the nature of the work activity and job position (eg, roles, responsibilities, authority, and reporting relationships), the associated resources available (eg, staff, students, colleagues, space, equipment, funding), the compensation provided (eg, salary and benefits), the work environment (eg, location, collaborators, culture), and expectations of performance with a time frame for achieving specific goals. Other important but less objective professional factors are perceptions of job flexibility and potential advancement opportunities.
The complexity of evaluating these many personal and professional factors in considering various options at multiple points during one's career highlights the reasons why mentorship is so important at every step, especially early in one's education and training.9, 10, 11 Mentors can help mentees balance considerations of personal and professional factors in evaluating the relative risks and benefits of the pathways and choices available. They also can help mentees determine their compatibility with an organization's culture, expectations, and goals by providing candid and honest feedback to enhance self-awareness and decision-making. As careers develop and issues and opportunities change, it is normal to expect that the nature and types of mentorship needed also will change.
Decision Making in Career Development
A common issue in career development is deciding between specific options, especially regarding job positions and professional opportunities. Mentors can assist mentees in deciding when to make a career change, whether to take on additional commitments, how to align multiple academic and service responsibilities, and how to balance work with personal life activities. They also can help their mentees with decisions about how to effectively interact with members of their professional and local communities, how and when to advocate for their interests, and how to appropriately contribute to their professional societies and other organizations.
While mentors can help identify and evaluate career determinants, ultimate decisions require value judgments by the mentee in weighing all of the personal and professional factors involved and balancing them with emotional and practical considerations. A relatively simple method that I have used for decades for weighing options combines objective analytics with gut feelings in a mathematical matrix process as summarized in Table 1. Briefly, the approach is to list all personal and professional factors separately as rows and all options as columns, assign relative importance scores to the factors and relative benefit scores to the options, multiply the importance and benefit scores for each factor's option, and compare the totals to determine the relative priorities. If this analytic priority differs from the emotional one (ie, gut feeling), the importance and benefit scores of each factor and option should be reviewed for potential changes; if none are made, an additional factor for gut feeling can be added with an appropriate score for its importance. Those with a strong vested interest in a decision (eg, spouse, partner) also should be involved in this process, either by helping to determine scores or by performing a separate analysis to compare and help understand the basis for any differences in opinions.
Table 1.
Example of an Analytic Assessment of Options
| Factors |
Options |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Categories | Importance score (f) | Option A |
Option B |
||
| Benefit (a) | f × a | Benefit (b) | f × b | ||
| Professional | (1–5) | (1–5) | (1–25) | (1–5) | (1–25) |
| Boss(es) | 5 | 3 | 15 | 4 | 20 |
| Job responsibilities | 5 | 4 | 20 | 5 | 25 |
| Job authority, title | 4 | 3 | 12 | 5 | 20 |
| Work facilities, location | 3 | 4 | 12 | 4 | 12 |
| Office facilities, location | 2 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 8 |
| Colleagues, faculty | 5 | 5 | 25 | 4 | 20 |
| Students, access | 3 | 5 | 15 | 4 | 12 |
| Staff support | 3 | 5 | 15 | 4 | 12 |
| Culture, values | 5 | 4 | 20 | 4 | 20 |
| Flexibility | 3 | 5 | 15 | 4 | 12 |
| Advancement opportunities | 4 | 4 | 16 | 4 | 16 |
| Mentoring | 5 | 4 | 20 | 4 | 20 |
| Subtotal | 47 | 189 | 197 | ||
| Personal | (1–5) | (1–5) | (1–25) | (1–5) | (1–25) |
| Family | 5 | 5 | 25 | 4 | 20 |
| Salary | 4 | 4 | 16 | 4 | 16 |
| Benefits | 4 | 4 | 16 | 4 | 16 |
| Location | 3 | 4 | 12 | 4 | 16 |
| Housing | 3 | 5 | 15 | 4 | 12 |
| Schools | 4 | 4 | 16 | 4 | 16 |
| Friends | 4 | 5 | 20 | 3 | 12 |
| Cost of living | 4 | 4 | 16 | 3 | 12 |
| Subtotal | 31 | 136 | 120 | ||
| Total | 325 | 317 | |||
List all professional and personal factors involved in a decision as separate rows, and all potential options as separate columns. Option A represents a current position, and Option B, a potential new position (>2 options can be used as appropriate). Score each factor for its relative importance (eg, 1 = lowest, 5 = highest). Review and consider combining factors that are similar and partitioning those that are most important and then re-score. Add the factor scores and determine whether the total relative weight of professional factors is in appropriate balance with personal factors. If not, readjust to balance and re-score. Score each option similarly for its relative benefit (eg, 1 to 5) by each factor. Multiply the factor importance score (f) by the option benefit scores (a, b) for each cell in the matrix. Add the totals of each column (f × a, f × b) to determine the overall priority for each option.
Compare the analytic priority to your gut priority; if they differ, review each of the factor and option scores and repeat the process if any are changed. If analytic and gut priorities still differ, add gut as an additional factor with an appropriate score for its importance. Score the benefit of each option and compare the new totals for each option. Have those with a strong vested interest in the decision (eg, spouse, partner) use the above process; if their priority differs from yours, compare how they scored the importance of factors and benefit of options to identify the basis of differences.
Table 1 demonstrates this process for the hypothetical situation of considering a move from a current position (Option A) to another potential one (Option B). This example shows that the higher score representing the pull of a better professional position with Option B (197 > 189) is outweighed by the more attractive personal situation in staying with Option A (136 > 120), even with a strong bias toward weighing professional factors more than 50% higher than personal factors (47 > 31). In addition to providing an objective means for making decisions, the process of identifying and assigning relative weights to specific personal and professional factors and discussing them with others can substantially enhance self-awareness about one's own values, expectations, and goals, especially as they may change over time. This analytic process also can provide greater confidence in making choices that otherwise may feel too arbitrary or are in conflict with emotional priorities.
Avoiding Mistakes
Avoiding mistakes when considering new opportunities is another important aspect of having a mentor. A common mistake is not fully evaluating both the benefits and risks of staying in one's current job with the same rigor used for assessing the potential benefits and risks of a new position. Other common mistakes are focusing on the short-term rather than long-term benefits of an opportunity, and rationalizing the acceptance of a poor-fit position as a stepping stone to a better one, which too often does not materialize. These mistakes often result when the push to leave a position is stronger than the pull of another one, which is not uncommon but should raise a red flag about being objective in evaluating new opportunities and the importance of seeking advice from trusted mentors.
Mistakes also occur in the process of considering new positions and opportunities. Being offered a job that involves exceptions to the normal processes of an institution may be flattering, but suggests that politics is more important than process, which can backfire when it is someone else's turn to benefit. Likewise, the benefits of an extraordinary position that are largely dependent on a new boss may disappear if he or she leaves. Other mistakes include overreacting to the sunk costs of the time and effort invested in a recruitment by feeling compelled to accept the position, as well as overreacting to the attractions of the recruitment process and developing the reputation of looking at too many positions without serious intent. Mentors can help to identify such potential mistakes.
When new career opportunities appear unexpectedly, it is a mistake not to consider them seriously just because they were not planned. In some cases, surprise opportunities may provide a significant boost to a career; even when they may not be an appropriate option, the process of considering unintended paths can stimulate new ideas for career development. Here too, mentors can help mentees avoid missteps. A very common mistake, especially for high performers who are often presented with many opportunities, is saying yes to taking on a new commitment without saying no to something that they already are doing. Adding more commitments without freeing up time and effort elsewhere is only possible when someone is actually not busy or productive. Unfortunately, busy and productive people who take on additional obligations often reduce their personal life activities and well-being, which can be counter-productive to their professional career. Overall, the biggest mistake in career development is not getting adequate help and guidance.
Identifying and Utilizing Mentors
Asking for guidance and choosing mentors is an important process over the course of a career and should be done carefully.12,13 It is helpful at the onset of mentoring relationships to focus interactions on specific stated goals, which may change over time. At different points during a career, having too few mentors or only mentors in the same discipline or with the same background may not provide the diversity of input to meet a range of personal and professional needs. In contrast, having too many mentors may not allow enough time with each of them and lead to unsatisfactory or superficial relationships that do not provide the guidance needed. Although potentially unsettling, receiving contradictory advice from different mentors should be viewed positively as it can provide broader input for your own decision making. However, concerns may arise when there is a personal conflict between mentors, in which case it is important not to take sides and to maintain a positive and confidential relationship with each.
Desirable characteristics to identify in potential mentors include their experience and wisdom, self-awareness and openness, empathy and patience, creativity and crucial thinking, availability, and an admirable reputation. They also should have compatible values and mentoring styles that fit with their mentees such as whether they are interactive versus instructional, challenging versus compliant, and informal versus formal. Key indicators of a good fit between mentor and mentee are mutual trust, confidence, honesty, candor, satisfaction, aligned goals and expectations, and positive feelings.
Mentees should try to enhance their relationship with mentors to benefit both, and should be clear about their expectations, activities, interests, and goals. Mentees should ask mentors for help and advice as needed, be well-prepared and considerate of their mentors' time, listen carefully, show appreciation, and provide regular feedback. Asking mentors “why” and not just “what” can expand the discussion and improve decision making, as well as grow their relationship. Mentees can also deepen their relationship with mentors by sharing their own knowledge and experiences, expressing gratitude, and following up to describe how they utilized and benefited from the help and guidance they received.14
Additional Sources of Career Help and Guidance
In addition to traditional one-on-one mentors, career guidance and mentorship can be provided in a variety of ways, including team-based mentoring (eg, multiple complementary mentors, mentees, peers, juniors); multilayered matrix mentoring (eg, peers, supervisors, staff); mentoring programs (eg, institutional assignment, on-boarding); and virtual mentorship using crowd sourcing, online interactions, and artificial Intelligence (AI).15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 A range of mentorship programs have been developed in academic departments of pathology and shown to be beneficial to those in training and in enhancing departmental interactions.23, 24, 25
AI is becoming an increasingly useful virtual and interactive means of obtaining career advice and assistance, through machine learning and generative and agentic AI tools that can help answer questions and make decisions.10,26, 27, 28 Key benefits of AI tools are ease of access, rapid speed, and a wide range of answers to questions. However, AI does not provide the same humanistic elements of a physically interactive personal relationship and occasionally can give inaccurate, biased, or inappropriate responses. In addition, there are various safety, privacy, and ethics issues that should be evaluated and understood when considering the use of specific AI tools.29 Nonetheless, the value of AI in providing career guidance and mentorship is continually improving with advances in technology and should not be overlooked.
Successful career development usually includes sources of advice and assistance in addition to mentors, such as coaches, sponsors, and role models. Coaches are specialists in a field who are usually compensated and use their expertise to improve professional skills, help develop new abilities and knowledge, and enhance personal behavior by providing appropriate feedback, instruction, practice, and training. Sponsors include teachers, peers, and leaders who use their status and networks to help identify and obtain positions, awards, honors, and opportunities. Role models include anyone who provides positive or negative examples of behaviors, skills, or decision making that influence and impact others. Role models may interact directly with those they influence, or they can be distant or historical figures who indirectly provide influence and have an impact that can be long-lasting. Other sources of career help and guidance often include trusted family, friends, colleagues, collaborators, and leaders who use their experience and knowledge to provide valuable input and feedback about professional activities and performance, as well as work–personal life balance.
Providing Mentorship
Just as one's own career development benefits from the advice and assistance received from mentors, most professionals consider providing mentorship as a responsibility to help advance the careers of others. Mentoring can range from simply providing career guidance, advice, coaching, and support, to an ongoing commitment and partnership in which both the mentor and mentee proactively work together for mutual benefits. Opportunities to provide mentorship usually involve requests from one's current or prior students, trainees, staff, and junior colleagues. Occasionally, mentorship requests may come from others who feel that they could benefit from your guidance, especially through mentorship programs at your institution and professional societies. In some cases, senior colleagues and even a supervisor or leader may ask for mentorship in areas where they are looking for additional professional guidance and counseling, especially to increase their skills or self-awareness or in making certain decisions. While potentially uncomfortable, mentoring activities (especially with more senior mentees) work best when they are kept confidential and separate from actual work responsibilities and interactions.
Deciding whether to provide mentorship to a particular individual should include several considerations. Foremost is confidence that you have the time and energy to accept the added responsibilities of the mentorship. Moreover, you should feel comfortable, compatible, and competent in mentoring the individual based on your experience, style, and interests. A shared understanding of the expectations and goals of the mentorship, especially regarding time available and priority of issues, also helps ensure a productive commitment.
Mentors often differ in the types of individuals they wish to counsel; some feel their greatest impact can be in helping those who are struggling, while others feel they can be most helpful to high-level performers who have the potential to be outstanding in their field. Both types of mentees present significant challenges in being mentored. For those struggling, mentorship is most needed to improve performance and productivity by addressing appropriate aspects of their learning, confidence, and behavior. In contrast, mentorship of high achievers is often needed to address their over-confidence, reduced ability to deal with setbacks and mistakes, and resistance to advice, which they frequently perceive as criticism.30 Self-awareness and honesty are most important in helping mentors know who best to mentor and how best to do it. When having to decline a mentoring opportunity, it can be useful to recommend alternative potential mentors and assist in making the connections.
Being a good mentor is complementary to being a good mentee. It requires active engagement and significant commitment, candor and honesty, compassion and empathy, careful listening and confidentiality, as well as comfort in discussing issues, opening opportunities, providing recommendations, and assessing progress. Good mentors use their experience, wisdom, expertise, connections, and behavior to provide appropriate advice, counseling, coaching, sponsorship, support, role modeling, and guidance to enhance the knowledge, skills, achievements, decision making, and ultimate career development and success of their mentees.31,32 This is often best done by mentors using personal examples and stories of their own successes and failures along with ones they have observed from others.
In addition to developing more mentorship programs, many academic health centers are providing training programs for mentors to help meet the increasing needs of students, trainees, staff, and faculty. Such training programs can help mentors become more effective, especially for those who have little experience in providing mentorship and for more senior mentors who are less familiar with the nuances in guiding mentees from different generations, backgrounds, cultures, and behaviors.
Risks and Benefits of Being a Mentor
Providing mentorship may occasionally generate issues of concern. Most important of these is when the time and effort spent in mentoring interferes with one's personal life or professional activities, which usually is the result of having too many mentees or having mentees who are overly demanding or inconsiderate. Another concern is when mentorship becomes more about the mentor than the mentee. This can occur when mentors focus on taking control and giving instructions rather than providing counsel and openly discussing options. This also can occur when mentors try to reproduce their own career path in their mentees rather than help their mentee discover his or her own direction in career development. These issues can generate tension and conflicts between mentor and mentee that become counterproductive and a negative experience for both.
Providing help and guidance brings many potential benefits to mentors as well as their mentees. Perhaps the greatest benefit comes in the joy and satisfaction of contributing to the achievements, success, and career development of a mentee. Sharing one's own knowledge, experience, and networks in mentoring can increase the impact and development of a mentor's career and enhance their own reputation. In addition, developing a strong relationship with those being mentored provides intellectual stimulation, new ideas, and increased self-awareness for both mentors and their mentees. Providing good mentorship also yields benefits to institutional culture, performance, and reputation. In particular, the availability of good mentors and mentoring programs are increasingly important factors in the recruitment and retention of students and faculty.33
Lessons Learned
On a personal basis, I have been fortunate to have had so many committed mentors and remarkable mentees throughout my career. Some of the many lessons I have learned in my own career development include the following:
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Alignment with the values, culture, expectations, and priorities of your institution are key determinants of your success and satisfaction.
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Feeling underappreciated is a sign to move; you are either overestimating your value or actually are being undervalued.
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Priorities likely will change for you and your organization as you progress and the environment evolves.
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Expect surprises: Every new position has some things that are better, and others that are worse, than expected.
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Be prepared: At some point your boss may leave and promises may not be kept.
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Inertia (resistance to change) and entropy (losing focus) are powerful forces in physics as well as career development.
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Serendipity: Do not underestimate or overlook the potential beneficial impact that unplanned opportunities may have on your career.
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Do not say yes to take on additional responsibilities if you cannot say no to something else you are doing (unless you truly are not busy).
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Leadership: Prioritizing the success of both your team and your organization is paramount.
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Be careful as a leader how you express an idea; some will assume it is what you really intend or believe.
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Self-awareness is crucial and not possible without candid and constant feedback, which can be difficult to get (especially for leaders).
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Whether intended or not, your behavior is often a role model (both positive and negative) for others.
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Teamwork: Be a team player in ways that you would want members of your own team to play for you.
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Decision making is a complex art and science based on subjective and objective personal and professional considerations.
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Asking “why?” is usually the best way to determine the answers to what, how, and when.
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Work–personal life balance is essential to wellness as well as professional and personal satisfaction.
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You do not know what you do not know; getting advice and guidance always helps.
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Family should always come first.
Summary
Mentorship is an important factor in the career development as well as the personal and professional success of both mentors and mentees. The value of the guidance and help received by mentees, and the satisfaction and experience obtained by mentors, cannot be overstated. Moreover, the ripple effects of good mentorship on the individuals and institutions associated with mentors and mentees add substantial secondary benefits. As career planning in medicine and biomedical research becomes increasingly more complex and challenging, mentorship remains a significant key to the success and satisfaction of students, staff, faculty, and leaders.
Disclosure Statement
None declared.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to the many mentors whose guidance, help, and counseling have been key to my career development and activities with universities, companies, government, and nongovernmental organizations and foundations, and especially in my transitions between institutions, leadership roles, and research activities. They have had a crucial impact on my professional career and personal life. I also am grateful to the many students, faculty, staff, and leaders I have had the pleasure of mentoring for all that I have learned and gained from our interactions.
In particular, I thank Peter Backus at Archbishop Molloy High School for providing advice and encouragement to pursue a research career in physics; J. Heinrich Matthaei at the Max Planck Institute for Experimental Medicine for providing extraordinary research opportunities and training in molecular genetics, lessons on interacting with students, and how to develop interdisciplinary research teams; and Alan Heeger and Anthony Garito at the University of Pennsylvania for providing career counseling during my master's research about how physics and interdisciplinary research could generate opportunities in medicine.
I am grateful to many mentors at Duke University during my years as an M.D.-Ph.D. student, resident, and faculty member, especially Thomas D. Kinney for providing critical advice, counseling, and help, and for showing me how leaders should focus their attention on students and the importance of diversity in academic medicine; William G. Anlyan for how to lead and delegate to teams; D. Bernard Amos for how to develop novel research and be committed to trainees; David Scott for how to be a mensch; David Sabiston for the resources and advice he provided and showing how to continuously strive for excellence; and Robert Jennings for how to be a team player and gracious and supportive of your institution even when priorities change. I also acknowledge many important mentors at Johns Hopkins University, where I served as Pathology chair, director of research for the Transplantation Center, and chair of the Promotions Committee, especially Catherine DeAngelis for showing how to value diversity and be an effective mentor; Michael M.E. Johns for how to support faculty leaders and provide them opportunities; James A. Block for how to solicit and utilize advice and prioritize optimizing benefits over minimizing risks; John Cameron for how to engage with impact and get things done; Elias Zerhouni for how to assess and allocate resources to enhance productivity; and William Brody for how to critically evaluate opportunities.
I am grateful to many mentors while I served as dean of Medicine and Public Health, executive dean and senior vice-president of Health Sciences, and CEO of the Medical Center at Ohio State University, especially Brit Kirwan for showing how to effectively recruit and retain talent and uphold commitments; Peter Geier for how to bring competing departments and people together; Susan Jablonski for how to communicate effectively; Anthony Rucci for how to value faculty and staff achievements and behavior; Frank LaFasto for how to build and support teams; Jay Barney for how organizational structure and culture can transform performance; Gail Marsh for how to develop effective strategies and tactics; Robert Walter for showing the importance of balancing work and personal life activities with family and friends; and Leonard Schlesinger for how to think strategically, improve performance, and focus on priorities.
I thank many mentors and role models while I served at Emory University as Woodruff Health Science Center CEO, Emory Healthcare board chair, and director of the Emory–Georgia Tech Healthcare Innovation Program, including James Williams, John Rice, and Douglas Ivester for showing how to interact with community leadership and Bernie Marcus while I was medical director and trustee of his foundation for how to prioritize those you serve, raise funds, and use philanthropy effectively. I also thank David Bailey and Claire Pomeroy for their wisdom, friendship, and collaboration in writing two books on advice to medical school leaders and faculty. Most importantly, I am forever grateful to my wife, Janet, who has been my major source of advice, strength, and support for over 50 years.
Footnotes
The Gold-Headed Cane Award is the oldest and most prestigious award given by the American Society for Investigative Pathology (ASIP). This award recognizes significant long-term (lifetime) contributions to experimental pathology research, outstanding teaching, general excellence in the discipline, demonstrated leadership in the field of pathology, as well as engagement in the activities of the Society. Fred Sanfilippo, recipient of the ASIP 2025 Gold-Headed Cane Award, delivered a lecture entitled “The Importance of Mentorship in Career Development” on April 27, 2025 (Portland, OR).
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