Mentoring In Optometry Practices Provides Necessary Support For Team Members

All eye care providers benefit from mentoring programs not just students and interns. Mentors and mentees benefit from mentoring. While mentees learn new skills and expertise, mentors gain confidence in solving problems, reaffirm that they are performing correctly, and develop new ways of doing things by discussing how to solve problems with mentees differently. Mentoring allows practitioners to create new knowledge and ways to care for the patient and improve leadership skills for both mentors and mentees. One of the greatest benefits for interns is that mentoring promotes mutual respect among team members, makes them adhere more closely to the team’s purpose, and enormously helps them become part of the team even at an early stage. Mentoring plays an important role in the career development of employees and helps them learn new skills and new experiences in the workplace improving recruitment and employee retention.

In an article written in 2010, Hawkins and Fontenot argue that mentoring is the key to the development of leaders in the healthcare professions. “Both leaders and mentors need to develop their own self-knowledge, strategic visions for their own careers, engage in risk-taking, express creativity through all aspects of their lives, feel inspired and inspire others”. The commitment of both the mentor and mentee is essential and can be enhanced by good training and the development of support systems. Moreover, what is even more important to the mentoring role is the passing of the torch of mentorship from the mentor to the mentee, enabling the mentee to become a mentor to colleagues, new interns, and young professionals. According to Hawkins and Fontenot, self-knowledge, strategic vision, risk-taking, creativity, communicative effectiveness, and inspiration are among the most desirable characteristics of a mentor in healthcare and eye care in particular.

Effective mentoring provides team members with both a coaching and an educational role. Anyone taking on the role of a mentor in the practice is required generously give time, show empathy, be willing to share knowledge and skills, and have an enthusiasm for teaching leading others to success. The greatest support employees can get from a mentoring program is personal development, career guidance, and career choice. There are many ethical issues and potential difficulties that should be considered in mentorship programs that include avoiding setting unrealistic expectations, and identifying and setting aside conflicts of interest or any conflicts that affect the progress of a mentorship relationship.