Building Mentorship Capacity Through the Mentor Development Program

Practice Overview

Practice Name	Mentor Development Program
Description	The University of New Mexico (UNM) School of Medicine developed the Mentor Development Program to address the shortage of skilled mentors in academic health centers by training faculty from other institutions across the Southwest and Mountain West regions of the United States. The program provides structured mentor training through both asynchronous online modules and synchronous, case-based virtual sessions offered in partnership with regional institutions.
Participants	Each session enrolls up to 50 faculty members of any track, rank, or research experience from 13 partner institutions across the Southwest and Mountain West.
Frequency	The eight-week program is offered twice annually.
Modality	Combination of asynchronous online modules and synchronous virtual sessions.
Resources	Financial investment from the UNM School of Medicine and Health Sciences Center funds administrative time and facilitator time, leveraging additional Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) funds.

Introduction

Mentoring is widely recognized as essential to academic success, yet access to skilled mentors for faculty remains limited. To address this shortage, the UNM School of Medicine launched the Mentor Development Program, a structured initiative designed to expand mentoring capacity and improve the quality of mentorship across institutions in the Southwest and Mountain West. The program began in the late 2010s as part of the UNM Clinical Translational Science Center’s (CTSC’s) goal to increase the number of skilled mentors, drawing inspiration from successful national models while tailoring content to the region and institution’s culture. The program initially consisted of a synchronous, in-person component along with a series of asynchronous, online resources. In 2020, the in-person component shifted to a virtual program due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This shift enabled the program to expand and build partners across the Southwest and Mountain West, shaping it into what it is today. The program is now led by Akshay Sood, MD, MPH, and the Offices of School of Medicine and Health Sciences Center Faculty Affairs and Career Development and Health Sciences Center Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

Goals and Objectives

When the UNM was awarded a CTSC, it became an institutional priority to improve the mentoring climate within the institution. The Mentor Development Program was created with the following goals:

1. Expand the pool of skilled faculty mentors across academic health centers in the Southwest and Mountain West.
2. Improve mentoring competencies for faculty of all ranks, including clinician educators and researchers.
3. Enhance institutional mentoring climates and promote inclusive mentoring practices.
4. Provide a sustainable, no-cost to the participant, scalable model for mentor training.

“If organizations want to improve mentoring climate, the first thing they have to do is invest in a mentor development program.”

— Akshay Sood, MD, MPH

Promising Practice Overview  

The Mentor Development Program is an eight-week program offered twice per year. It combines asynchronous online learning with synchronous virtual sessions to improve mentor competencies and expand access to mentoring skills training. The asynchronous modules provide foundational content, readings, and resources aligned with best practices in mentorship. Each module is followed by a 60-minute, virtual, synchronous session that applies these concepts through real-world case discussions. This flipped-classroom format encourages reflection and peer exchange while making the most of faculty time. Senior mentors and guest facilitators from partner institutions co-lead sessions, enriching discussion and fostering cross-institutional networks. The eight modules include:

1. Defining Mentoring from the Beginning
2. Rewards and Challenges of Mentoring
3. Communicating Effectively With Mentees
4. Achieving Work-Life Balance
5. Understanding Diversity Among Mentees
6. Benefits of Formal and Informal Mentoring Relationships
7. Leadership Skills and Opportunities — How to Build a Research Team
8. Helping Mentees Get and Manage External Funding

The program welcomes any faculty member — regardless of track, rank, or research experience — and emphasizes inclusivity. Each cohort enrolls up to 50 participants per session with approximately half of the participants completing the program each term. Participants are recruited via email and announcements at department meetings, in promotion and tenure resources, and from Faculty Affairs Offices. One of the most effective recruitment strategies has been to rely on the social capital of leaders at partner institutions to communicate the value of the program.

The program leaders believe that accessibility is critical for its success. By partnering with Project ECHO, the Mentor Development Program has been scaled to faculty members from 13 institutions across seven states. A telementoring framework originally developed at UNM, Project ECHO virtually connects physicians who may be geographically isolated. This framework creates a community of practice where physicians are connected to experts and peers, and expertise is shared and expanded through collaborative learning. The Mentor Development Program adapted a similar model for their program to address the shortage of skilled mentors, connecting faculty with senior mentors from across partner institutions to share mentoring expertise, build a network, and learn from each other. Project ECHO provides (a) an existing framework for ease of scaling and brand recognition, (b) continuing medical education, (c) the Zoom hosting platform, and (d) the iECHO software to monitor outcomes.

Results and Impact

Since its inception, the Mentor Development Program has trained over 400 faculty across 13 institutions, indirectly benefiting an estimated 1,000 or more mentees. A randomized controlled study demonstrated that self-reported mentor competency, as measured by the Mentor Competency Assessment-21, improved significantly at three, 12, and 24 months for participants in the combined asynchronous and synchronous program, compared to the asynchronous-only control group (p ≤ 0.005). Improvements were also observed in mentee-reported outcomes at 12 months, including mentee assessment of their mentor’s skills and mentees’ perceptions of their own career success as measured by the Subjective Career Success Inventory.

“We’ve trained about 400 to 500 people. … if each one of these had two or three mentees … we’ve changed outcomes for about a thousand faculty.”

— Akshay Sood, MD, MPH

Due to its multi-institution structure, the program also turned out to be a networking opportunity. The program provided participants the opportunity to network with one another as well as senior leadership from other institutions who served as guest facilitators.

In addition, the program has had a high return on investment in terms of grant funding. Numerous training grant applications at the UNM have included the program as a resource, and the school has seen that it has increased the fundability of those training grants.

Resources Needed

The Mentor Development Program began with modest funding and relied heavily on collaboration and alignment with institutional goals. Initial support came from the CTSC, with subsequent contributions from the UNM School of Medicine and Health Sciences Center to fund administrative and facilitator time for the program, also leveraging HRSA and NIH funds. The funds pay 10% of the full-time equivalent for two faculty chair facilitators and three staff members. The most critical resources were dedicated faculty champions, administrative coordination, and volunteer guest facilitators. Virtual delivery and the partnership with Project ECHO kept costs low while maximizing reach across the region.

Challenges and Lessons Learned

Building a sustainable and impactful program is not a small undertaking, but if an organization wants to improve its mentoring climate, a good first step is to invest in a mentor development program. Based on their experiences, the UNM team offers other institutions looking to build a program the following advice:

• Align program goals with institutional or grant priorities to secure funding and leadership support.
• Leverage social capital and interinstitutional partnerships to share expertise and resources.
• Maintain program accessibility by keeping it free to participants.
• Use virtual delivery to expand reach without compromising quality.
• Regularly evaluate outcomes to demonstrate the program’s value to leadership.
• Don’t start from scratch. The UNM welcomes other institutions to use their program’s materials and adapt them to their own needs.

Moving Forward

Building on the success of the Mentor Development Program, the UNM team has expanded mentoring initiatives through additional offerings focused on mentoring networks, cross-cultural mentoring, and sponsorship. Future directions include studying how mentorship training influences mentee outcomes and developing programs to strengthen sponsorship and leadership development among faculty.

Acknowledgements

This case study is based on a Sept. 25, 2025, interview conducted with Akshay Sood, MD, MPH, distinguished professor of medicine, University of New Mexico School of Medicine. Funding was provided by NIH/NIGMS U01GM132175 (Sood, PI), U54GM104944 (Sy, PI), HRSA D34HP45723 (PI Romero-Leggott), and NIH/NCATS UL1TR001449 (Pandhi/Campen, PIs).

Medical School Statistics

Name of Institution	The University of New Mexico School of Medicine
Location	Albuquerque, New Mexico
School Size as of 2024 Number of medical students Number of full-time faculty	4281 9512
Public/Private:	Public

For more information, contact Amy Smith or Carolyn Brayko.

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