A proficient mentor is a must when starting up with research

Abstract

Modern research is highly competitive, with a demand for publications soon after the start of a research career. Thus, a proficient mentor – a supervisor – is now recognized to be essential for success when starting up with research. A proficient mentor may introduce an individual to the crucial points in a particular field of research, which cannot simply be identified by a novice by reading background literature. Influential and sustained mentorship enhances research activity and a researcher’s career.

The present paper provides a guide on how to make an informed, rational decision about which qualities to seek in a prospective mentor. An individual should seek a mentor with a research field of interest and with the potential of being a proficient mentor. Which questions must the novice in research always consider before committing himself or herself to a mentor? A mentor should be evaluated on the basis of insight and knowledge, time for supervision and productivity. Furthermore, a mentor’s reputation as supervisor must be taken into account. Aim early at obtaining an appointment for a meeting with a prospective mentor and show up prepared by having read relevant information. Be aware that the mentor will also continuously evaluate the apprentice’s qualifications. It is important that the apprentice’s expectations regarding the mentor’s input – and vice versa – are well defined at an early stage. When both parties decide to give it a go, start by creating a research plan. This plan will serve as a written commitment between apprentice and mentor.

Modern research is highly competitive, with a demand for publications soon after the start of a research career. Thus, to gain the opportunity of being introduced to an established field of research, you first need to seek a proficient mentor to guide you. A mentor is generally defined as an experienced and trusted supervisor or counsellor. The mentor in medicine can be perceived as a person to trust and respect, with whom research trainees can discuss all aspects of their professional life (1–3). It is known that influential and sustained mentorship enhances research activity and a researcher’s career (4–11). It is becoming widely accepted that improving the quantity and quality of mentors is necessary to ensure the continued success of medical science. On this basis, the present paper provides a guide on how to make an informed, rational decision about which qualities to seek in a prospective mentor in a research field of your interest and with the potential of being a proficient mentor for you. Practical aspects on how to do this are outlined below.

A RESEARCH FIELD OF INTEREST

A field of medical research is generally characterized by having a particular scientific background or basis – for example, a background in biochemistry, anatomy, social medicine and psychology, among others. Current knowledge concerning a field of research may be perceived as an area of plasticity, ie, the field of research constantly grows as new knowledge accumulates in a stepwise, ‘budding’ fashion. New ‘buds’ may be your first papers. Thus, the field of research has expanded as a result of your contributions. Further growth of the area will occur when you, or preferably also other researchers, address further questions, adding more ‘buds’. Your research now gains impact when used by others. Hence, the field of research in question is vital and expanding. Becoming associated with such a field of research has the potential of becoming very rewarding. A senior scientist must have general knowledge of the entire field of research. However, as a novice, you may at first focus on the knowledge that is needed to produce your own ‘buds’ (ie, the research close to your ‘bud’). Pursuing new projects in the same field of research will enable you to make use of such knowledge again and again. This is much more rational than starting from scratch with a new field of research each time.

Note that research must expand from the frontline of current knowledge. Editors of journals demand new, exciting data, because such data attract readers. Thus, it is most advantageous to pursue frontline research. However, as a novice, it is difficult to identify a frontline with the potential for growth. This reason, in particular, is why a proficient mentor is needed. Methodology is a key issue in a field of research, and it is very difficult to evaluate methodology as a novice. It may prove advantageous to gain the opportunity of working with an applicable, relatively novel method. A mentor that can provide access to such techniques may be especially attractive.

A proficient mentor may introduce you to the crucial points in your field of research, which cannot simply be identified by a novice or an outsider by reading background literature. Thus, today’s scientific frontline – within practically any field of research – has typically not yet been published in the form of an article that one can retrieve and read. This is because a recently published original paper reports results that, from a practical perspective, are typically already a few years old due to delay as a result of the traditional publishing process. A proficient mentor, however, will stand a better than average chance of knowing about important frontline developments from, among other things, attending conferences and communicating with peers, whereas a novice by him- or herself would be unable to retrieve such information. Thus, without the assistance of a proficient mentor, a novice would be more prone to run the risk of, for example, repeating work that is already underway. The novice may also risk applying methodology that perhaps has been proven to have its limitations or may not be up to date. Work of that sort could prove to be difficult to publish.

The first step in narrowing down the number of people worthwhile of establishing contact with in the research community is to seek out individuals who work in fields of science that fascinate you and have your interest. Web sites of universities, institutes and departments may prove to be an interesting source. With such people, you would thus expect to have substantial mutual points of interest, and even more points of mutual interest are likely to evolve along the way when working together. It should be noted that choosing a particular field of research does not necessarily mean that you, at the same time, have irrevocably chosen a corresponding future research field as well. A certain relation between your chosen field of research and your future research career may naturally be deemed useful. However, having worked with almost any field of research may give you the benefit of a scientific apprenticeship, which may be deemed to be of relevance to practically any research career. Choose a field of research in which you are gifted, capable and skilled. It is also important to note that international scientific papers of the highest impact are generally published in English. If you are no good at English, you may consider the additional work toll invariably associated with publishing papers in international journals. However, it helps to know that publishing in English is accomplishable whether you are fluent or not, because a particular field of research usually makes use of specific English language-based terminology that can be relatively easily learned and used.

A POTENTIALLY PROFICIENT MENTOR

Based on the above, you may have now identified one or more fields of research that you find interesting. Thus, now comes the time to seek out individuals in the research community who are working in frontline fields of science, and to establish who may prove to be a proficient mentor. Again, you should not count on serendipity. A classic error to avoid is to start out on a research project only because it had been proposed by a fortuitous senior staff member – elated, basically by apparently being chosen, and secondly, by establishing an area of research and gaining a mentor all at the same time. Such an approach may be advantageous in some instances, but may more often be characterized as naive, regardless of the fortuitous senior staff member’s rank or position. It is our experience that apart from personal dedication and ambition, the single most important prerequisite for achieving success in medical research is to establish a working relationship with a proficient mentor. Thus, like a spouse, a mentor must be sought very carefully. Helpful hints are given below on how to establish whether a prospective mentor is proficient.

As may be expected, proficient mentors are usually very much in demand, and hence rather busy. There might appear to be an interesting almost inverse relationship between a prospective mentor’s insight/knowledge about the field of research in question, and the amount of time he or she has available to supervise. Thus, in general, a ‘young researcher’ may have little research knowledge but time to spare, whereas a person ranked ‘professor’ has considerable knowledge but little time to spare. A professor may already have lots of people to supervise, papers to mark, reviews and presentations to attend to, and also he or she may be out of town frequently attending various conferences. Hence, you must consider what you expect your needs to be. Needless to say, a prospective mentor must have substantial insight and knowledge in your field of interest to be able to supervise in a proficient manner – time to spare alone is not enough. However, perhaps you feel a need for being able to consult your mentor frequently. Here, it may prove more advantageous to form an association with a young researcher than with a professor. It should be noted that a ‘senior resident’ may be a professor in the making – a ‘rising sun’ so to speak – that is, a person with considerable insight and yet time enough to spare for time-consuming supervision, because of fewer (or no) obligations to other protégés compared with a full-fledged professor.

One of the most important qualities to observe in a prospective mentor is his or her profile of publishing. Scientific production along the course of a research career may be divided into periods with an increasing, a stable and, subsequently, often a decreasing amount of activity. First, a person who has not published at all cannot be considered a proficient mentor, because such a person cannot deliver even to him- or herself the product in question (ie, publications). A proficient mentor should have either an increasing or a stable profile of publishing. At one point or another in life, at a time that varies from individual to individual, scientific production usually starts to decrease: this may be the simple outcome of allowing oneself or preferring to pursue other interests. Maybe such a person already has achieved his or her scientific goals and, therefore, prefers to spend time on achieving other goals, which does not allow sufficient time for taking part in writing papers. Nevertheless, in spite of having perhaps a high-ranking title in the academic hierarchy, a person with a decreasing frequency of publishing may not be as attractive a mentor as a person with an increasing or a stable frequency of publishing, because his or her scientific drive may have diminished. In the case where the number of papers the prospective mentor publishes per year is close to zero, it would be – notwithstanding rank, honours or titles – very naive indeed to believe that your working power would make any difference at all. A truly proficient mentor should be expected to produce at least a few papers each year, preferably as senior author (the author usually mentioned last in a publication).

But how does one establish a prospective mentor’s profile of publication? This is, of course, sensitive information, such that it might not at an early stage be advantageous to approach a prospective mentor by asking straightforward for a copy of his or her list of publications. A rundown is given below on how to obtain the information in question and, in the same process, on how to establish the prospective mentor’s level of proficiency.

PubMed is the United States National Library of Medicine’s premier bibliographic database service, covering the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system and the preclinical sciences. Thus, by searching a prospective mentor’s name on PubMed <www.pubmed.com>, you can determine the number of publications he or she has authored, where and when the papers were published, what they were about, and thus, to a large extent, you can establish a prospective mentor’s profile of publication. There are, however, potential sources of error to be aware of: a search may not be completely up to date because of a delay before full records are prepared and added to PubMed; moreover, there is usually considerable lag time from when an idea or scientific hypothesis is pursued until when the corresponding original article is published. Thus, it is feasible that considerable research activity is underway, but that it is as yet undetectable; furthermore, PubMed does not necessarily feature all journals of potential interest; finally, your search may contain nonrelated authors with the same name who cannot simply be distinguished from your prospective mentor.

Ideally, the more cited a researcher is, the more impact his or her research may be regarded as having on the development of the field of research. Therefore, in turn, a prospective mentor’s citation frequency would be of interest to you as an indication of his or her strength in the scientific community. This information may be accessed consulting Science Citation Index. You may visit the Web site at <www.isinet.com>. Science Citation Index may be consulted free of charge by using a university-affiliated scientific library that subscribes to this product. Again, as with PubMed, there are sources of error: lag time before publications are cited; publications on some subjects are cited more often than those on others (eg, papers on methods are generally cited much more frequently than publications primarily dealing with results); self-citations or being cited by close associates do not count as much as citations by independent authors, because they imply no general use of – or for – the reported data.

Finally, you should evaluate your prospective mentor’s reputation as a supervisor. This may be established by talking to people who have worked with him or her. Has he or she supervised previously, and if so, what was the outcome for the person(s) involved. Although such information may be deemed hearsay, people in search for a mentor make such a simple effort much too infrequently.

Now you must obtain contact with the mentor to be. Try by e-mail to obtain contact. Or make a phone call. Suggest a date and time for a brief meeting. Before the meeting, study more thoroughly the field of research you have chosen, in particular by reading your prospective mentor’s list of publications and one or two of his or her more recent papers. You may already have found a number of them through PubMed.

At the meeting with your prospective mentor, tell him or her why you are interested in his or her field of research. Be absolutely frank and honest about how much you will be able to work. Based on your studies of the literature, you may be inquisitive and propose new initiatives to the best of your ability. This will, without doubt, seem impressive and speak very much in your favour. Your prospective mentor’s response may be, “Such an initiative could prove to be useful, however, perhaps one might primarily investigate…” – and thus, proceed to come forth with a proposal of his or her own. It is advisable at this point of your career to listen carefully to your mentor’s ideas for inception of an interesting project and, in the beginning, generally adapt to them. The reason for this is that as an insider, he or she understands the frontline in your prospective field of research better than you possibly could. At a later stage, when you have gained more insight, you will certainly be able to pursue new frontiers in your field of research as you see them – and, in due course, you will be equipped for undertaking such a task.

You now have the information to go far in research. In the case that ‘chemistry’ between you and your prospective mentor proved right, and you both agree to go ahead in an apprentice-mentor relationship, only the actual task (hard work) remains – but with a much diminished risk of being wasted. It is important to backup your verbal intentions by establishing your physical presence in the environment. Be aware that the mentor will also continuously evaluate the apprentice’s qualifications. It is important that the apprentice’s expectations regarding the mentor’s input – and vice versa –are well defined at an early stage. Start working on a practical level. Your efforts will actively confirm your commitment. A practical level must be followed by an academically more advanced level (ie, putting pen to paper). Start contemplating the production of what may well be your first written research product (ie, a research plan), which will also serve as a written commitment between you and your mentor.