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coaching scholarship indicates coaching has positive effects on individual-level out-
comes that include performance/skills, well-being, coping, work attitudes, and
goal-directed self-regulation [ 24 ]. Coaching, based on this analysis, is an important
interventional strategy from a number of vantage points. In addition, coaching has a
strong effect on changing behaviors [ 25 ]. It is no surprise that formalized coaching
programs are being integrated in surgical programs to promote individual perfor-
mance improvement [ 26 ]. And the concept of coaching has expanded beyond face-
to- face coaching to include video-based coaching with the aim of improving surgical
technical skills [ 27 , 28 ]. Coaching is being implemented in varying ways and is
proving to be useful in performance improvement.
Mentoring shares some similarities with coaching; however, it is more career and
long-term focused. Within academic medicine and in surgical education, the impor-
tance of mentoring is emphasized, “Mentoring is essential to the complex professional
and personal development of contemporary surgeons” [ 29 ] (p.717). In similar ways to
coaching, mentoring has positive impacts within workplace learning. Mentoring can be
split into two types, career and psychosocial, with career mentoring consisting of orga-
nizational, job specific, exposure, challenges, and protection. Psychosocial mentoring
consists of role modeling, acceptance and confirmation, counseling, and friendship
[ 30 ]. It is possible that a mentor offers both career and psychosocial mentoring at the
same time. Or learner may seek out a psychosocial mentor from another department.
For example, a surgical resident may seek out an attending in internal medicine because
they have a similar background (cultural, ethnic, gender, family, religion, language),
and their partnership provides a sense of comfort and friendship. Mentors may come
within and beyond the surgical education setting. Based on a meta-analysis of both
types of mentoring scholarship, mentoring research indicates: [ 31 ]
- Career mentoring has a correlation to compensation and promotion.
- Mentees involved with more psychosocial mentoring were more satisfied with
the mentoring experience. - Both forms of mentoring were connected with higher career and job
satisfaction. - Mentored versus nonmentored results revealed strong effects for career-specific
variables such as career commitment, expectations for advancement, and career
satisfaction.
In addition, mentoring, particularly in academic medical settings, appears to
offer additional benefits. Impacts have included increasing organizational stability
(sharing of institutional memory), assisting medical schools in recruiting and retain-
ing new faculty members, addressing gender and cultural inequities, building schol-
arly productivity, and increasing medical students, residents, and faculty members
with more personal development and career guidance [ 30 – 37 ]. In addition, surgical
trainees who have participated in mentoring relationships have found them to be
useful in the learning process [ 38 ]. A return to the story of the resident helps illus-
trate how both coaching and mentoring provide relationships that can help surgical
residents and students improve their performance and develop competencies.
J.L. Koehler and E. Sturm