Designing a System of Mentorship in Shiraz University of Medical Sciences

As you know, one of the new programs of the medical universities is to familiarize the students to the medical atmosphere with the help of compassionate and experienced university professors. The program is planned and implemented under the title of mentorship, in which an experienced instructor takes the responsibility of orientation, guidance and problem solving of a number of students. The students at the time of admission face some problems, usually due to the young age, unfamiliarity with the university context, the amount of the texts, etc.; therefore, they feel somehow defenseless in this atmosphere. In this program, which was longitudinal and often causes a long-term and friendly relationship between the professor and students during the education years, these problems of students discuss with teachers (Mentor) and in this interact somewhat elevated. To do the appropriate implementation of this concept in the university, the university was required to be familiar with the concept of mentorship at the first step (1). So, the Education Development Center of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences (EDC) has implemented this issue in a series of educational fellowship workshops for the professors of postgraduate levels.

In teaching this concept, the Jowhari model (Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham famous model) (2) has attracted the attention of authorities and professors of this period. In educating the concept of mentoring, the development of self-generalization window of the professors was considered. Because this section covers the ability of communication and flexibility in the leadership of the individuals, development of the window (area) decreases the incidence of conflicts and misunderstandings and struggles between individuals in this regard. To develop this area, there was an attempt in this period that the professors get familiar with the two methods of self-openness and feedback. This educational program was a pilot which was implemented in the country for the first time in one of the fellowship programs for the faculty members. Then, according to the results and positive feedbacks, it was applied more extensively. So far, this subject has been trained in 5 different fellowship training courses of the professors in the form of diverse topics, such as the mentorship concept in educating the students, counseling and mentoring models and evaluation and feedback principles. The results of the training shows achievement of the educational goals (85%), applicability of the educational materials (93%), and relevance of the educational environment (78%) in the universities. So, due to the newness of this concept in the country and the necessity of its performance, doing more studies on the improvement of this concept in the other professor of this university seems necessary.