BECOMING A MENTOR

BY MARJAN FARID, MD

Everyone in the health-care industry needs a mentor. Clinicians often work in environments that are stressful and fast-paced, with continued advancements to technology only adding to these demands. Without proper guidance in the form of professional and personal support from trusted, experienced peers, negative consequences are bound to result — from dissatisfaction with one’s job to potential burnout. But providing mentorship to others is not a role for just anyone.

Making the commitment to serve as a mentor is exactly that — a promise to provide an invaluable service. Much as patients rely on their physicians to be comprehensive in their care, mentees are dependent on their mentors to keep their careers healthy in various ways. They often require assistance that goes beyond the clinical and surgical aspects of this profession. This culminates in the need to understand how they can grow to be leaders in the ophthalmology arena and to continue to pay it forward by allowing their skills and education to offer value to future generations of physicians and patients alike.

Despite the inherent challenges, the role of mentoring does also bring with it a great sense of reward, pride and accomplishment. And the path to becoming involved in mentoring opportunities has become more convenient today for those who are interested in this type of responsibility.

In this article, I will discuss the various routes that MDs can take to become a mentor, the skills needed, the benefits and challenges, and the impact of technology.

HOW MENTORS ARE UTILIZED

Whether you’re in an academic setting where there’s always a presence of students, residents and fellows or in private practice, mentors can take many routes to making an impact on their peers. Education and instruction on clinical skills can occur in a classroom/lecture setting and/or through on-the-job shadowing, where patient-care observations happen in real time. Other important functions of the mentor include motivating others, role modelling, advocating for their mentees and sharing advice along with regular feedback.

Mentoring can be accomplished in both the group and one-on-one varieties, which come with their own tradeoffs for both the mentor and mentee.

In more intimate settings (for instance, if a fellow is training to work in the same sub-specialty as the mentor), significant parts of the relationship include counseling and helping mentees to envision their future role in the industry. This includes building a practice and establishing networking connections by introducing them to key opinion leaders within the industry.

Mentors can help to advance the industry by developing more excitement among younger clinicians to take leadership positions, especially among women. There’s a big need in this space to help lead young professionals into roles that will continue to drive innovation and new technology.

MENTORING SKILLS TO POSSESS AND PERFECT

A genuine interest in mentoring is a wonderful trait to have, but that is only where it begins. Mentors must have time management, written and oral communication skills as well as a passion for teaching and providing instruction. Patience should be a constant habit, and mentees should always feel that their mentor is approachable at any time or place, within reason.

Importantly, having the time to provide mentorship goes beyond being able to fit time with your mentees into your schedule. Mentors can mentor by example, be natural leaders who make the effort to set an example by giving back to society, joining industry-related committees and organizations as well as speaking at regional and national conferences, whether they be in person or online. Effective mentors not only set these types of examples — they help their mentees achieve the same opportunities and be a resource when needed in relation to these endeavors. To be valuable as a mentor also means having the ability and willingness to help others to recognize where their best skills are and to instill confidence in others to utilize those skills to meet career goals and to improve upon areas in which their skills are not as evident.

MENTORING CHALLENGES

The challenges that come with mentoring cannot be ignored. The first is finding the time to commit to meeting with others in a meaningful way. Digital conferencing applications that have emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic have created more outlets for mentors and mentees to come together and have eliminated such complications as traveling, but significant time still needs to be dedicated to this approach.

Connecting with others from a personality and demographic standpoint can also be an arduous task, especially when the mentee is from a traditionally underserved or underrepresented population. The way in which males and females form relationships with their mentors can also vary greatly depending on each professional’s respective background and their career ambitions.

From a diversity perspective, officials with the American Society of Retina Specialists and the organization’s diversity committee have launched mentorship programs that identify mentees from underrepresented communities that pairs them with retina specialists from academia and private practice to help them become more acclimated to the field. It’s expected that more of these types of programs will surface to help break down barriers that have prevented more people from underrepresented populations from entering the field and progressing in the field.

THE IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY

In some respects, technology has improved the ability for mentorships to develop. Meeting online has proven to create convenience. While some professionals have concerns that online communication is not as impactful as being in person, effective engagement is certainly possible online if the mentor is creative enough in their presentation skills.

Technology in general has also increased the need for more mentorship to occur because of the many sophisticated lenses that continue to come to market. As technology evolves, mentors are at the forefront of instructing others on how these products function, how they are implemented and how certain surgical techniques can improve patient care outcomes.

CONCLUSION

The rewards that come with mentoring on both a professional and personal level are numerous. Mentoring allows you to give back to the profession by paying it forward with personalized education and training of one’s peers.

One of the greatest accomplishments that can be achieved in this industry is seeing someone you mentored not only achieve success in their own right, but also become a mentor themselves. The sense of pride that comes with experiencing that level of impact on a peer’s future is probably difficult to match.

Opportunities for mentors are more available for today’s physicians. But the demands on mentors and the needs of their mentees are a bit more sophisticated. Those who are interested in this type of volunteer work can evaluate their options to find the best opportunities. OM

Marjan Farid, MD, is a board-certified ophthalmologist on staff at UCI Health, Orange County, Calif. She specializes in cornea and cataract surgery, LASIK and refractive surgery.

MY PERSPECTIVE ON BEING A MENTEE

How having mentors launched my career as an ophthalmologist

BY TU TRAN, MD

Throughout my life, having mentors has been the key to pursuing any professional goal. While I feel it has been serendipity and luck, a modest degree of intentionality and 110% of “carrying a message to Garcia” has allowed me to find the right mentors. In this article, I will share my perspective on why having a mentor is important, what the process was like and how having a mentor has had an impact on my professional life.

INSTILLING HARD WORK AND DETERMINATION

Dr. Michael Haglund, a neurosurgeon at Duke Health, has been a role model for me ever since I began working with him in 2013 through a master’s program in global health. Dr. Haglund introduced me to global surgery, public health research in Uganda and an essay, “A Message to Garcia,” which he routinely gives to all beginning neurosurgery residents. The essay tells a story of an American officer who, before the onset of the Spanish-American war, needed to ally the US Army with a Cuban general, Garcia, in a mountainous location whose whereabouts were unclear. Nevertheless, the messenger traversed the hostile terrain and eventually found the general against all odds.

Just as the messenger applied his resolve to find Garcia, Dr. Haglund drilled into me the values of hard work and blind determination, working on projects and goals that, while seemingly impossible to achieve, were worthwhile in their potential human impact. One of these projects was a nationwide prevalence survey on the burden of untreated surgical conditions, which determined that approximately 10% of the country’s population had untreated surgically-treatable conditions (for example, a white cataract). Our work has helped shape health policy toward strengthening surgical services in Uganda, increasing investment in surgeon training and government health-care facilities to hire more surgeons in districts with higher burden of disease.

Dr. Haglund helped put me on a path toward medicine and global health because he showed me how an academic surgeon could contribute to capacity building by establishing training programs in a low-resourced setting, mentoring trainees through public health research and impacting policy while working as a frontline health-care provider day after day to perform life-changing surgery on patients.

As a mentee, I learned to proverbially emulate the mentor. I took every facet I idealized about Dr. Haglund to improve myself, from how to treat and care for patients to smaller details, such as work habits and daily routines to become more efficient.

TRANSITIONING TO OPHTHALMOLOGY IN UGANDA

In medical school, the two mentors who have given me a chance to pursue ophthalmology were Dr. Sandra Montezuma, a vitreoretinal surgeon at University of Minnesota, and Dr. Simon Arunga, a cornea and cataract surgeon at Mbarara University and Dr. Arunga’s Eye Hospital in southwestern Uganda.

Together, we acquired a large grant from Lions Club International Foundation to establish diabetic retinopathy screening in a region of 5 million in southwestern Uganda. While still a work in progress, we are striving to expand a retinopathy of prematurity service and train a vitreoretinal surgeon who would be the first to work in the region.

To this day, I continue to walk through walls for Dr. Montezuma and Dr. Arunga. Besides the projects that we have worked on, Dr. Montezuma has supported me in all of my professional endeavors since the first day of medical school, when I told her I wanted to become an ophthalmologist. As with Dr. Haglund, I have tried to emulate Dr. Montezuma’s endless energy, attention to detail and pursuit of excellence in everything she does. That has certainly been imbued upon me in all of my professional and personal pursuits in medical school and, nowadays, every single cataract and retinal surgery do with her.

As for Dr. Arunga, he has helped me through implementing clinical research projects in southwestern Uganda and introduced me to manual small-incision cataract surgery, which is the preferred technique for patients presenting with mature cataracts. I can always count on his guidance and friendship through difficult times in my life as well. His boundless level of empathy is something I strive to expand upon myself.

LESSONS IN SURGICAL SKILLS AND GLOBAL ACCESSIBILITY

Now in ophthalmology residency, I have been fortunate to be a part of the OWL fellowship program.

I learned about this opportunity at the OWL reception at ASCRS 2021. From young, energetic professionals who are working on exciting projects for their companies or academic institutions to more seasoned veterans who have already given so much to our field, I was blown away by how OWL brought together such diverse stakeholders of eye care in a unique forum, in which OWL’s emphasis is to help nurture the next generation.

Through this program, Dr. Marjan Farid graciously agreed to be my mentor. Already, she has generously given me her time and opened many doors. Her impact on my growth as an ophthalmologist and as someone who wants to become a corneal surgeon is more than she realizes.

During my PGY1 year, I scrubbed in on one of her penetrating keratoplasty cases, which she did at an astounding pace while maintaining exquisite control, precision and safety. She allowed me to cut suture with my left, non-dominant hand. One of her pieces of advice was to start doing day-to-day tasks with my left hand to become more ambidextrous. Two years later, I am amazed by how intentionally struggling with mundane tasks like eating, brushing teeth or using a laptop mouse, has helped me become more comfortable with my left hand in the operating room.

Another of Dr. Farid’s areas of expertise is femtosecond laser-enabled keratoplasty (FLEK). She introduced me to FLEK by allowing me to work on a clinical review paper with her. Moving forward, I would like to help her and others around the world perform a randomized clinical trial comparing FLEK to its conventional counterpart. Moreover, she is pushing the limits of deep anterior lamellar keratoplasty and performing the procedure more precisely, elegantly and safely using the femtosecond laser without creating a big bubble to separate Descemet’s membrane from the posterior stroma.

While I intend to be a low-tech global ophthalmologist practicing in low-resourced settings, her work has expanded my mind and has shown me that innovation and accessibility are intertwined — there should not be a tiered system where those in rich countries get access to the latest technology, while the underinsured in the United States or the billions who live in low-income countries (LICs) get access to 30- to 40-year-old technology.

We are excited about an ongoing global clinical trial on injection of donor corneal endothelial cells to treat posterior corneal diseases. If successful, this could replace endothelial keratoplasty in many scenarios and obviate the need for eye banks in LICs or dependence of tissue importation. In the near future, I hope that with Dr. Farid’s support, I could help introduce such an innovation to low-resourced settings where my collaborators work.

Many financial analysts and C-suite level executives of ophthalmic medical or device companies will tell me my aspirations are unrealistic and impossible. I would tell them I will continue carrying “a message to Garcia.”

CONCLUSION

Mentors inspire us and show us the impossible is possible. They support us through life’s challenges at every phase of our professional and personal lives. I emulate and learn from my mentors as they generously guide me through a project, a surgery or life’s unexpected challenges. They transcend the transactional relationship of getting things done and they have cared for me at a human, personal level. OM

Tu Tran, MD, is currently a PGY3 ophthalmology resident at the University of Minnesota and an Ophthalmic World Leaders fellow under mentorship of cornea surgeon, Dr. Marjan Farid.