In Reply to Chang and colleagues.

In Reply to Chang et al

We would like to thank Chang and colleagues for taking our work seriously and adding value with their insightful comments on the need for mentoring in scientific communication. We agree with both their premise and concrete suggestions for ways to conceptualize scientific mentoring skills within our Mentoring Competency framework.^1,2

Chang and colleagues go beyond a focus on general scientific communication to elaborate on the challenge “for mentors and mentees for whom Standard Academic English is a foreign language.” This issue raises awareness about cultural diversity factors associated with academic acculturation, which influences scientific training, specifically within the mentoring relationship. All individuals are shaped by the social, cultural, and historical context in which they live and work. Therefore, how mentors and mentees understand the deep and superficial aspects of their lived experiences and their racial and ethnic group identities must be inclusive of sex, gender, language, and social class if we are to fully understand the complex nature of their mentoring experiences. Simply put, the entire continuum of cultural diversity matters is salient in all aspects of human life, including scientific training and research mentoring.

Therefore, we must build not only the capacity of research mentors to effectively advance the careers of mentees, but we must also prepare “master mentors” who can respond to the social, cultural, and emotional needs of mentees who may come with a wide array of “identities”, and focus special attention on individuals from underrepresented populations. Such training could stand alone or be integrated into each of the competencies noted in our article and as articulated by Chang and colleagues. The newly funded National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN; www.nrmnet.net) will provide needed infrastructure upon which to build and sustain mentor-mentee training interventions that are scientifically sound and culturally responsive.³ Through NRMN, we can re-imagine what excellence means for mentors and mentees from diverse cultural backgrounds being mindful of the fact that racial and ethnic minority mentees are being trained by leaders across a wide range of both minority- and majority-serving institutions. It is incumbent that all of these institutions be prepared to contribute substantively to the diversity of the biomedical workforce. This is a clarion call from NRMN to the entire academic research community to join us in generating new ideas on how best to expand training to address the challenges and opportunities raised by Chang and colleagues.