Mentorship is a learning-centered, leadership-driven expertise that nurtures the following era of researchers and clinicians in academia (Rabeeah et al 2022). School mentors in allied well being science packages play a vital position in shaping their mentees’ skilled development and long-term profession success. Mentor-mentee relationships could also be school and pupil, or seasoned school and junior school.
When reflecting in your prior experiences as a mentor or a mentee, ask your self these questions:
1. Was it a constructive expertise?
2. Did you expertise disparities based mostly in your gender or race as a mentor or mentee?
3. Did you’re feeling you had ample coaching to be a mentor, or did your mentor exhibit they’d the talents to assist you as a mentee? and
4. How had been the mentors and mentees matched?
Many extra questions have to be requested to make sure the mentor-mentee relationship and interactions are ample for exponential profession development. Nevertheless, cultivating a constructive expertise for the mentee, guaranteeing there are not any limitations (i.e., gender or race) for a novel expertise, mentor coaching, and applicable pairing of mentors and mentees are overarching concerns supported by proof. (Rabeeah Z, 2022, Stenfors-Hayes T 2011, Mascarenhas F 2019, Bartle et al. 2020, Hill et al 2022, Frei et al 2010)
Downside
Concurrently, established formal mentorship packages are missing in allied well being science education schemes for each college students and junior school. Having formal mentorship packages for school to acquire coaching for mentorship roles and pointers to assist each junior school and college students is important for foundational success in academia. (Reibel & Arnett 2025, Mascarenhas F 2019) On account of the dearth of college mentors, college students might not be getting publicity to avenues past medical apply. This has been recognized in dental hygiene schooling. (Reibel & Arnett 2025) It’s suspected that allied well being science packages, generally, have comparable limitations to growing, implementing, and evaluating analysis mentorship packages. The objective of this text is to supply a blueprint for allied well being packages to determine a framework for initiating a proper mentorship program.
Answer
To develop and implement a proper mentoring program, you want institutional ‘buy-in,’ strategic planning, school and college students for piloting this system, an evaluation metric(s), and a overview of the outcomes course of to make suggestions to switch the mentorship program. All these features rely on institutional assist. Step one can be to determine the necessity for a mentorship program supported by proof. The subsequent step can be to align a mentorship program with the establishment’s strategic plan.
Strategic Planning
Strategic planning is important for constructing coalitions amongst deans, division chairs, program administrators, and mentors. It’s the deliberate means of setting objectives, figuring out sources, and establishing priorities. Starting with a imaginative and prescient and mission assertion could function the muse to set objectives to execute after which place a mentor program to determine sources, priorities and particular teams or people in a coalition of champions.
To construct a various vast community of champions to assist a wide range of views, you will need to determine people and teams who can contribute a variety of sources, are versatile, and have the power to pivot when modifications have to happen. Nevertheless, it’s equally vital that the decided coalition of champions are in alignment with the imaginative and prescient and the mission of the mentorship program. A mentorship program coalition of champions could assist inclusive and sustainable programing and improve the attain of accessible sources. Additional a mentorship coalition is particularly related to match applicable mentors and mentees and supply a novel mentor expertise for the mentee for lifelong studying {and professional} improvement.
The subsequent side of strategic planning is the event and implementation of a pilot program. A mentorship pilot program is required on a small scale to find out feasibility. Mentorship pilot packages are required to gather outcomes to judge for enlargement and enhancements. Moreover, if funding is required to maintain or construct the mentorship program for enlargement, these major outcomes are wanted to safe inside or exterior grant funding.
Allied well being science packages could discover accessible sources for a mentorship program via their human useful resource division, skilled organizations, or authorities businesses. One instance of a profitable pupil analysis mentorship program was revealed within the Journal of Dental Hygiene in 2025. (Reibel & Arnett 2025) This pupil analysis mentorship program partnered with the Writing Enrichment Curriculum to develop assignments and rubrics to enhance pupil writing. (Reibel & Arnett 2025) This pupil analysis mentorship program not solely applied standardized assignments and grading rubrics throughout the curriculum but additionally resulted in eight student-led peer-reviewed publications between the years 2019-2023. (Reibel & Arnett 2025) Though the strategic plan and sources offered on this publication are particular to an allied oral well being science program, (Reibel & Arnett 2025) the data is transferable to any allied well being science program for college students and may be modified for a college mentorship focus.
Conclusion
This blueprint is relevant to formal mentorship for school and college students. The primary framework is transferable and may be modified to match your establishment’s strategic plan and objectives. You will need to pay attention to key elements to make sure a humanistic mentor and mentee expertise is cultivated. Strategic planning is critical for growing, implementing, and evaluating a mentorship program. A coalition of champions who share the values of the imaginative and prescient and mission of a proper mentorship program contributes to the general mentorship program and analysis of metrics for future modifications and longevity.
Michelle Arnett at present serves as a Tenured Affiliate Professor within the Division of Major Dental Care, Division of Dental Hygiene (DH) on the College of Minnesota (UMN) College of Dentistry (SOD). Arnett has 10 years of expertise in teachers and analysis on the College of Michigan SOD and the UMN SOD, along with 21 years of medical apply expertise. Her areas of analysis focus are motivational interviewing and periodontology. Arnett has revealed over 50 peer-review articles and two textbook chapters. Of these 50, 29 are particular her analysis area of interest in motivational interviewing and periodontology. The remaining 21 peer-reviewed publications give attention to her instructing, pupil mentee analysis tasks, and college and college students’ wellness. Arnett has given over 60 shows; 20 had been invited nationwide and worldwide occasions. In 2023, Arnett acquired the American Dental Training Affiliation (ADEA) President Centennial Awards for Oral Well being Training. This was a one-time award at ADEA’s centennial celebration for an allied dental school who has made and continues to make a major and constructive impression on oral well being schooling. Arnett has taught Communications, Periodontology, Management, and the Dental Hygiene Care Course of: Medical Utility III and IV within the UMN undergraduate DH program and Tutorial Methods, Thesis I and II, and Capstone I-IV within the UMN graduate DH program. Her skilled memberships embody Sigma Phi Alpha-Nu Chapter, American Dental Hygienists’ Affiliation (ADHA), and the ADEA.
References
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Frei, Esther, Martina Stamm, and Barbara Buddeberg-Fischer. “Mentoring packages for medical students-a overview of the PubMed literature 2000-2008.” BMC medical schooling 10 (2010): 1-14.
Hill, Sarah EM, Wendy L. Ward, A. Seay, and J. Buzenski. “The character and evolution of the mentoring relationship in educational well being facilities.” Journal of medical psychology in medical settings 29, no. 3
Mascarenhas, Faye, Janice Townsend, Paul Caballero, Qingzhao Yu, and Paul L. Fidel Jr. “Scholar and college views of a college‐pupil mentoring programme in a dental faculty.” European Journal of Dental Training 23, no. 2 (2019): 184-189.
Rabeeah, Zainulabdeen, Jocelid G. Carreno, Janet S. Kinney, and Marita R. Inglehart. “Profession motivation and satisfaction of dental hygiene college students in affiliate versus bachelor diploma packages: A nationwide survey.” Journal of Dental Training 86, no. 6 (2022): 649-660.
Reibel, Y.G., Jiang, Z., Arnett, M.C. “Mentor Like Minnesota: Outcomes of an undergraduate analysis mentorship program.” Journal of Dental Hygiene (On-line) 99, no. 2 (2025): 48-54.
Stenfors‐Hayes, T., L. E. Lindgren, and S. Tranaeus. “Views on being a mentor for undergraduate dental college students.” European Journal of Dental Training 15, no. 3 (2011): 153-158.
