Your Digital Mentor Podcast

What is mentoring

Episode Summary

Short description: What is mentoring and where do you get started. Guests: Grace Mwaura and Andres (Willy) Lescano Soundbite: Dr. Joseph Tucker The episode will discuss the roles of a mentor, mentee and institutions. The guests will share their experiences in establishing and implementing a mentorship programme, and evaluate opportunities for LMICs against the HICs mentorship models. The episode will also explore barriers to effective mentorship faced by LMIC researchers and institutions, and how to overcome these challenges.

Episode Notes

Takeaways from today's episode:

• A mentor is a wise and trusted counsellor or teacher who is willing to share knowledge and experiences about their life, career and also provides guidance and support.
• Alternative strategies such as peer, group and virtual mentorship address skills and resource limitations while enabling scalability and access to diverse pools of mentors worldwide.
• Mentorship in LMICs should be included in research integrity frameworks mandating institutions develop opportunities and supportive environments for mentoring.
• In order to develop a critical mass of mentors, develop a clear vision, use existing mentoring models, implement according to local needs and resources, and establish lessons learnt.
• It is impossible to build research and capacity without mentoring and LMICs need to develop structured processes for mentorship.
• To deal with hierarchical and cultural barriers we need to address verticality and gender issues, appreciate the importance of diversity and inclusivity, and develop an embracive culture encompassing young professors who understand the value or mentoring.

Resources

Strengthening mentoring in LMICs: https://europepmc.org/article/med/30430982

Benefits of mentoring: https://hr.ucdavis.edu/departments/learning-dev/toolkits/mentoring/benefits

Importance of mentoring: http://blogs.nature.com/naturejobs/2014/11/06/how-important-is-it-to-have-a-mentor-in-your-academic-career/

What makes a good mentor: https://getpocket.com/explore/item/what-the-best-mentors-do?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Guest information

Dr. Grace Mwaura is the Fellows and Affiliates Manager at the African Academy of Sciences where she provides thought leadership in the development, coordination, and implementation of AAS Fellows and Affiliates’ capacity strengthening initiatives. She also coordinates the AAS Mentorship Scheme that enables highly qualified and motivated professionals to mentor Africa’s early and mid-career researchers towards exceptional science leadership on the continent.

Find more about Grace and AAS here: @aasciences @gracemwaura, https://www.aasciences.africa/mentorship-scheme and https://aasciences.sfgmentornet.com/

Dr. Andres Lescano leads Emerge, the Emerging Diseases and Climate Change Unit and Epidemiology Masters’ and Doctoral programs at Cayetano University in Peru. He trained at Johns Hopkins, has published >130 manuscripts, trained hundreds of epidemiologists, and has joint appointments at the Tulane, Johns Hopkins, Wake Forest and Texas/Medical Branch universities.

Connect with Andres on twitter here: @emergeupch

Soundbite: Dr. Joseph Tucker is an Associate Professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Associate Professor of Medicine at UNC Chapel Hill, Director of UNC Project-China, and Chairman of SESH Global. Connect with Joe @JosephTucker

Acknowledgements

Editing by Mariana Vaz, https://www.marianacpvaz.com/

Research: Christine Boinett and Alice Matimba

Producers: Christine Boinett (Creator and Executive producer), Alice Matimba (Senior Producer), Emmanuela Oppong (Producer) and Isabela Malta (Producer).

Host: Christine Boinett

Media and Marketing: Catherine Holmes

Music: 

https://freesound.org/s/477388/

Sponsors:

Wellcome Genome Campus Advanced Courses and Scientific Conferences

Wellcome Sanger Institute

Social Entrepreneurship to Spur Health