Collaborative Co-mentoring
“We’re not stupid- we just need to be trained,” a general surgery section chief confided to me a few years ago. He had been promoted to section chief based on his clinical competence and then realized that he needed to communicate, negotiate, and resolve conflicts in ways that he had never learned in medical school or residency.
I began using the term “co-mentoring” to describe this process because I believe that each person brings valuable knowledge, experience, and wisdom to the table. Although I was helping physicians with process skills to improve communication, negotiation, and conflict resolution, they taught me things that helped me refine my approach. One of my physician colleagues has pointed out how important the co-mentoring prinicple is with physicians who are sensitive to hierarchy.
Some of my most gratifying moments have been in co-mentoring relationships with physicians. The section chief proved that he was not stupid by crafting a bold and far-reaching vision of where the section of general surgery needed to go. The colleague who made the comment about sensitivity to hierarchy evolved from a “rock-throwing member of the medical staff to Vice President of Medical Affairs … striving to promote co-mentoring relationships.”
When I helped set up a physician co-mentoring program recently, I asked physicians, “What makes a great co-mentor?” They replied:
- Personal connection
- Passion
- Insight
- Availability
- Active listening
- Mutual respect
- Clear vision and expectations
We agreed that to set up a safe environment for learning, they needed to:
- Learn about each other’s background, training, families, and extracurricular interests during their first encounter
- Reassure each other that there are no dumb questions
- Share painful on-the-job learning moments
- Be proactive, contacting each other frequently in the beginning to ask how they could be of assistance to each other
I have found that through co-mentoring, we can create a new generation of physician leaders who can increase transparency, improve physician-physician and physician-administration collaboration, and minimize physician-hospital battles.
What do you think?
- Do you agree that physicians enjoy learning from fellow physicians
- Have you seen dividends for leadership emerge from physician co-mentoring
- Is co-mentoring a process worth the investment
I welcome your input.
Kenneth H. Cohn
Posted: in Learning | Comments: 7
Comments
Pingback from International Collaboration | Healthcare Collaboration – Improving Physician-Hospital Relations
Time: October 19, 2008, 4:01 pm
[...] The complexity that we face today appears to require face-to-face conversations characterized by active listening: – concentration – attention to body language and tone of voice as well as avoidance [...]
Pingback from Collaborative Gender Issues | Healthcare Collaboration – Improving Physician-Hospital Relations
Time: December 14, 2008, 10:54 pm
[...] comment, “To mentor and be mentored is a part of the human DNA.” As I wrote in Collaborative Co-mentoring, a surgeon exclaimed, “We’re not stupid- we just need to be trained!” Some of our need for [...]
Comment from kirsti
Time: December 29, 2008, 12:35 am
Kenneth – I agree completely with your point of view and I think the co-mentoring, although it could be viewed as ‘foreign’ to physicians is actually something that is made that way in their training. It would be interesting to see if we took this approach in medical education, the kinds of differences it would make to both patient outcomes but also the health of our collegial relationships and therefore, our own health as professionals. I know in our surgeon communities, it is this aspect of co-mentoring that they find so valuable, as they exist in isolated practices….there’s definitely something important there!
Comment from kirsti
Time: December 29, 2008, 12:36 am
PS have you ever done this kind of co-mentoring in multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary settings?
Comment from Kenneth H. Cohn
Time: December 30, 2008, 7:35 am
Yes, Kirsti,
It worked great in a forum of medical students, business students, and nursing students, whom we interspersed, so that each table had an assortment of students of different backgrounds.
We used a case format in which they discussed at their tables and in the group at large what to do in response to a Medicare reimbursement cut.
Here are the program director’s comments:
“I met Dr. Cohn at the AUPHA meeting the summer of 2006. After some quick brainstorming, he and I agreed to a first of its kind Symposium on Interdisciplinary Collaboration. Ken did an excellent job, in a two-hour format, involving in and illustrating the challenges faced by interdisciplinary healthcare professionals in communicating with each other. We had 90 students in attendance from various programs in the Texas Medical Center. We will be sponsoring this program annually and fully expect attendance to grow exponentially. ”
Dan Martin, Executive in Residence and Interim Program Director, University of Houston Clear Lake at Texas Medical Center
Pingback from Collaborative Compact | Healthcare Collaboration
Time: January 31, 2009, 10:31 am
[...] the journey to alignment of goals and values requires transparency, engagement, and co-mentoring. Collaborative Co-Mentoring implies that each person brings valuable knowledge, skills, and experience to the [...]
Pingback from Collaborative Learning: Post 80 | Healthcare Collaboration
Time: November 19, 2009, 9:49 am
[...] stories can you share about the co-mentoring process, in which we learn from sharing knowledge and experiences with [...]
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