Mentorship Matters April 2024: Continuing the conversation
Over the past few years, Dr. Catherine Yu has been writing this blog on mentorship (many thanks, Catherine!). As the recently appointed Faculty Lead, Mentorship in the Culture and Inclusion portfolio, I was “given the torch.” I am very happy to work under the leadership of Dr. Umberin Najeeb (Vice Chair, Culture and Inclusion) to continue the conversation about mentorship in the Dept. of Medicine. I hope to spark reflections about not only mentorship per se but on how effective mentorship can help us to become more skilled and compassionate physicians, educators, scientists, and teachers.
A bit about myself: I am a MD PhD from Brazil. I landed in Canada in 2012 for a post-doctoral fellowship training in diabetes clinical research at the Leadership Sinai Centre for Diabetes. The role that my mentors have had in my career goes beyond academic support and guidance, crossing into my personal life. My Brazilian mentor, Dr. Jorge Gross, had a fundamental role early in my academic career: his guidance, role-modelling and firm concepts of equality were essential for building my confidence and grounding the belief that I could be as good as anyone in the world. Professor Gross, as I used to called him, suddenly passed away in a car crash in 2017, leaving behind an immense legacy of his mentorship in Brazil. In the face of many professional decisions, I often times look up to him in my thoughts wondering what his advice would be.
Once I started my academic career at Mount Sinai, similar nurturing mentorship relationships with Drs. Ravi Retnakaran and Bernard Zinman were essential in supporting my academic endeavors. My friend Ravi was a constant support during all the challenges I encountered in Canada (including a journey with breast cancer early in my career), providing me with professional and personal support, without which I do not think I would have been able to continue my journey in academia in Canada. Dr. Retnakaran’s style serves me as a flawless example of how to guide a junior faculty member with honesty, respect, and acknowledgment of differences while providing helpful and constructive feedback. Nowadays, Ravi unapologetically comes to my office to get chocolate candies from my jar (often more than three), and while he indulges high-fat-high-glycemic index treats, we talk about research ideas, laugh, and exchange ongoing challenges.
I wish everyone in our Department could count on a colleague’s genuine support in the same way I have and I am fully committed to that. Having a mentor, being a mentee, finding peer-mentors (as many as needed) can help us navigate the academic path. Our Dept. of Medicine has more than a thousand faculty members of diverse backgrounds, job descriptions, and unique perspectives. We need to make sure that we all have mentors at each stage of the academic life cycle and the Dept. is fully committed to this goal.
I invite everyone to share your mentorship stories through this blog: reach out to me if you would like to write about any aspect of your mentorship journey either as a mentor or as a mentee!
Caroline K Kramer
Contact: Caroline.Kramer@sinaihealth.ca
