In Finding Anchors in the Storm: Mentors (Wall Street Journal, January 27, 2009) Toddi Gutner advises young workers to identify and use mentors to provide practical, operational, career guidance as they navigate the corporate world and the recession. "About 70% of Fortune 500 companies offer mentoring programs... At International Business Machines, for example, every employee is assigned a 'connection coach' before their first day; after they join, workers are assigned a formal mentor." Why would IBM do dedicate this much human resource to young people? As a profit making entity it must view mentoring as a strategic investment in its human capital.
Do hospitals, academic medical centers, and medical group practices routinely assign mentors to 70% of trainees, young staff physicians, junior scientists and faculty? Do we strategically invest in longitudinally committed coaches and mentors who have the experience to guide promising but raw talent through the arcane channels of career development and accelerate their progress? Or do we instead rely on Darwinian survival that anticipates the fittest among these talented young people will effectively manage challenging professional relationships, navigate arcane academic and scientific politics, and grow careers that result in substantial clinical and scientific advancement? Not to mention developing the newly required managerial skills essential to leadership success. That's how corporations used to do it. But they figured out that strategic investment in talent and career development yields results. We can use results now. What models are out there at hospitals, AMC's, and medical groups?
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