Table 1
Quotes from the residents illustrating their experience with mentoring
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Communication |
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R2: The mentor pointed out that there is often more behind the emotions displayed by patients. When a patient gets angry, it is usually not because he just likes to shout at doctors. Therefore, it is better to identify the cause of the patient’s problem and whether it can be solved |
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R4: We discussed my interactions with patients prior to my encounters with them. After I had formulated my personal preferred approach, the mentor provided me with alternatives. I found a compromise and I got feedback afterwards. So, I got immediate feedback on my performance and we discussed alternative approaches to improve subsequent interactions with patients |
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R10: A patient’s spouse communicated in an aggressive and dominant way. When evaluating this consultation, the coach challenged me to re-label the spouse’s behaviour. I postulated fear as the reason for the displayed behaviour. On the next occasion, I confronted the spouse with this conclusion. On subsequent visits the atmosphere had clearly improved |
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Collaboration |
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R1: The mentor also made me aware of my own part in the interaction with the supervisors and provided me with tools to participate constructively in conversations. I found that this worked for me and I continued doing so |
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R8: I felt that I had a pleasant way of collaborating with colleagues, but I became aware that I can be quite compelling, which means that I can sometimes dominate others. This made me realise I was less approachable than I thought. The mentor confronted me with this and I had to admit that this behaviour sometimes provokes undesirable reactions |
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R4: As a starting resident you must find your role in the collaboration with nursing staff. They expect you to possess a certain know-how and to take the initiative by letting them know how you prefer to work. The mentor provided suggestions on how to tackle this without having to leave my comfort zone |
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Professionalism |
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R5: I have to watch out not to get overwrought … I already knew that, but I did not do anything about it. The mentor helped me better recognize the signals and how to react to them. Otherwise things could have gone wrong, for sure |
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R7: Due to personal circumstances, my correspondence with general practitioners and medical record administration had fallen far behind schedule. My program director informed me that it had been decided to prolong my medical training in order for me to work on this. The mentor helped me through this difficult phase by helping me vent my emotions and frustrations and motivating me throughout the rest of medical training. The mentor helped me to abandon my preconceived ideas about the program director and to approach him objectively. I was advised not to postpone problems, but to try to solve them in their infancy. After analyzing the problem, the mentor helped me write an action plan with detailed solutions. I could not have done this on my own |
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R9: Assuming a forced and detached doctor’s role was my unconscious way of hiding a lack of self-confidence in the beginning. A combination of feeling uncertain and expressing myself to patients not clearly, caused me to have difficulties in my encounters with patients as well as their families. I developed a more decisive type of communication with patients |