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BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Health Serv.
Sec. Health Workforce
Volume 5 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/frhs.2025.1514379
Mentorship Among Healthcare Researchers: A Social Network Analysis
Provisionally accepted- 1VA HSR&D Center for Healthcare Organization and Implementation Research, Boston, MA, United States
- 2VA Center of Innovation in Long Term Services and Supports, Providence, United States
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Mentorship is an active workplace relationship between a mentor and a mentee, aimed at mutual career advancement, which is vital for both employee growth and organizational success. To improve their mentorship structures and processes, organizations must first assess their current practices. Thus, we developed and conducted a cross-sectional survey to evaluate mentorship among employees at a two-site federally funded health services research center. We surveyed Center investigators and other employees (henceforth "staff"). We used social network analysis to examine both formal and informal mentoring relationships and assessed the association of employee connectedness in these networks with reported satisfaction. There were 120 respondents (62.2% response rate). A greater percentage of investigators had at least one formal mentor (55.8% vs. 25.0%) and one formal mentee (57.7% vs. 10.3%), and investigators had more informal mentors within the Center than staff (4.94 vs. 3.59, p=0.0485). Investigators reported higher satisfaction with mentorship compared to staff (6.63 vs. 5.25, p=0.002). Combining formal and informal mentorship across both investigators and staff, compared to formal mentorship alone, showed fewer degrees of separation (1.32 vs. 3.41 mean distance, p<0.0001). For the combined formal and informal mentorship network across both investigators and staff, satisfaction with mentoring was associated with having more connections with network members who were connected with each other (r=0.998, p<0.0001). To foster connections among employees, research organizations may create opportunities for open communication and collaborative problem-solving. Our survey and findings are timely given the growing emphasis on mentorship's importance for successful careers, motivated employees, and workplace productivity.
Keywords: Mentorship, Research career, Healthcare workforce, social network analysis, workplace relationships
Received: 20 Oct 2024; Accepted: 09 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Kim, Pleasants, Sullivan and Linsky. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Bo Kim, VA HSR&D Center for Healthcare Organization and Implementation Research, Boston, MA, United States
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.