Mentor Program
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Jennifer Marsella, MD
Director
Resident Mentorship Program
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Resident Mentoring Program
The Neurology Resident Mentoring Program at University of Rochester is a longitudinal 4-year experience that focuses on guiding residents in 3 key areas:
- Fellowship and career decisions
- Structured development of a scholarship project
- Defining personal and professional career goals.
Year One
Residents complete a written assessment to identify goals, career interests and research interests, and meet individually with the mentorship director to discuss. Residents are then paired with a specific mentor by the end of PGY1. Their mentors are intended to help them throughout residency and may or may not be their research, content or subspecialty mentor.
Year Two
Following a kickoff social event, mentor-mentee pairs meet at least quarterly to discuss progress, career goals and interests, and research projects. Toward the end of this year, mentors begin to work with mentees to begin planning for fellowship applications.
Year Three
The focus of this year is to work on a structured and guided scholarship project to present at the annual Schwid Resident, Fellow and Student Research Symposium, and ideally submit as a manuscript and/or poster on a national level. This process is guided not only by general and research mentors, but also takes advantage of the breadth of research expertise of our diverse faculty. Residents participate in monthly meetings in which they will discuss development of their projects, learn new skills, and identify resources for completing their scholarly activities. Meetings cover the following topics:
- Finding your project and mentor
- Development of a research question
- Reviewing the literature on your topic
- Study Design
- Research Methods
- Proposal presentations and critiques
- IRB guidance and Data collection
- Statistical Methods for Data Analysis
- Writing an abstract
- Creating a poster
- Presenting your work
- Writing a manuscript
Year Four
Residents are encouraged to continue their scholarship work but are also expected t
o be more independent and create their own timelines. The primary focus of this year is leadership and career development, with a curriculum that culminates in creation of a structured academic development plan that the resident will initiate after completion of residency.
The curriculum is focused on defining core values and understanding strengths in order to define and achieve goals. Monthly sequence of topics listed below:
- Identifying, clarifying and prioritizing your values
- CV workshop: strengthening your CV and aligning it with your values
- Developing long term goals: deciding what you want to do with your life
- Identifying short term goals that will lead to success
- Creation of a one year learning contract
- Determine your personal mission and vision
- Using your time wisely and efficiently
- Building and sustaining teams
- The work of becoming a leader
Our structured general and research mentoring program for residents is one of the most unique and valued components of our residency!