P4A095: Be a Buddy, Implementation and Perspectives on a Near-peer Mentorship Program

Background: Mentorship is essential to a resident’s career development. The evidence for mentorship is largely focused on traditional faculty-resident mentorship, with limited assessment of fellows as near-peer mentors. Fellows may be a unique and underutilized resource given their proximity to the role of resident trainees. Our intervention hopes to develop and assess a resident-fellow mentorship initiative through mixed methods study.

Methods: From January 2020 to January 2022, 74 residents and 72 fellows were enrolled in the Bear Buddies Mentorship Program at our large academic center. Our study evaluates residents’ and fellows’ attitudes and beliefs around fellows serving as mentors to residents. Also, will assess if and how fellow-resident mentorship enhances career development for residents interested in subspecialty careers.

Residents were matched with fellows, based on desire to enter a subspecialty career. Participants completed a pre-intervention survey assessing prior experiences with mentorship, attitudes towards mentorship, and confidence in fellows as mentors in various domains (research, clinical skills, applications, networking, and lifestyle). Residents of the 2022 and 2023 graduating classes and their paired fellows were recruited and 18 completed a structured interview assessment for qualitative, deductive analysis to identify major themes around near-peer relationships and career development.

Results: Of 53 resident mentees and 68 fellow mentors that completed the pre-intervention survey, 98% of mentees and 81% of mentors agreed that career mentorship is important. Notably, 49% of residents and 29% of fellows identified prior experience with fellows as mentors (Fig. 1). Of resident and fellow respondents, 94% and 86% respectively felt comfortable with fellows as mentors. Resident priorities in seeking mentorship were fellowship/job applications, research, and networking with confidence that fellows could address these topics (Fig. 2). Fellow priorities in mentoring were fellowship/job applications, transitioning to and lifestyle within the field, and research (Fig. 2). Preliminary results show 63% of residents entered the field concordant with their mentor’s specialty. Interviews are ongoing but with preliminary themes of benefits including opportunity to reflect and give back as well as developing skills in mentorship for involved fellows and positive impact on achieving career goals noted by residents.

Conclusion: There was a clear interest in the program from both residents and fellows and a readiness to accept a near-peer fellow in the mentorship role. Post-intervention surveys, qualitative interviews, and resident career selection lists are being collected to elucidate the effect of this program on resident success. We anticipate that our post-intervention results will demonstrate the benefits of developing near-peer mentorship opportunities as an added layer of support in Pediatric training programs.