Academic Mentorships Invigorate the Classical Hematology Profession

In an interview with Heme Today, Soo Park, MD, and Zoya Qureshy, MD, of the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, spoke about their work evaluating an academic mentorship program organized to train clinicians in classical hematology. The study presenting their assessment of this program was recently published in Blood Advances.

The year-long pilot program was initiated by Dr. Park through the American Society of Hematology’s Medical Educators Institute. In it, trainees interested in classical hematology were paired with experts in that field from outside the trainees’ own academic institutions.

“I think mentorship is really vital to fostering any type of academic career. That’s why we focused on providing mentorship to a group of trainees who really needed it,” Dr. Park said.

Dr. Qureshy explained that, lately, fewer trainees have applied to classical hematology programs, and the workforce in this field is projected to decline. The mentorship program was launched to address this problem. It explored how the mentor-mentee relationship could be harnessed to encourage trainees to pursue careers in classical hematology.

“We were trying to increase that mentorship within classical hematology to not only provide the resources for trainees who were interested in the field, but also to help promote further career development and retention in the field on a larger scale,” Dr. Qureshy elaborated.

By the end of the program, most of the trainees had highly rated their mentorship relationship and reported the experience as having enriched their professional development. These mentorship relationships were also fruitful in the research work they produced.

“Through their work with their assigned mentor, we had a lot of mentees in the program earn numerous academic accomplishments, whether it's awards, poster presentations, oral presentations, [or] publications,” Dr. Qureshy said.

She added that 23 mentees who participated in the program have continued into academic positions in classical hematology.