The Transformative Power of Mentorship: A Personal Account of Its Impact on My Professional Journey

Navigating medical school can be a challenging yet a rewarding journey. In my experience, pooled mentorship was crucial to my growth and development.

Throughout my years in medical school, I was fortunate to encounter a diverse group of mentors who generously shared their guidance, wisdom, and support. Not only did they help me develop my clinical skills, but also fostered my abilities and boosted my confidence in various aspects of my professional life.

Indeed, mentorship’s beauty lies in its universality¹. From reaching out and asking accomplished individuals if they would be willing to mentor me, I had the privilege of being guided by individuals within my institution, country, and worldwide using various mentorship models and structures. This allowed me to tap into their wealth of expertise and diverse perspectives, resulting in my meaningful contributions to science through research projects, conference presentations, and recognition with grants and awards. These connections also opened doors to professional opportunities that furthered my advancement. Furthermore, my mentors guided me in acquiring essential self-care skills, ensuring a holistic approach to my personal and professional well-being.

Exposure to mentors from various backgrounds is transformative². It empowered me to become a strong advocate for global health, after witnessing first-hand the positive impact of collaborations and diverse perspectives. This exposure helped me discover my passion for emergency medicine and research at an early stage, providing a clear career path.

My main challenge was managing expectations and accountability from multiple mentors which forced me to develop effective networking and connection management skills for balancing the support, and guidance provided by each mentor while maintaining my individuality and goals.

In conclusion, the diverse perspectives and experiences shared by a pool of mentors can greatly shape a mentee’s career trajectory and help unleash his/her true potential at an early stage. I will forever be grateful to my pool of mentors, that I achieved through proactive efforts, and I would definitely encourage others to embrace this invaluable resource.

References:

1.         Deb L, Desai S, McGinley K, et al. Mentorship in Postgraduate Medical Education. In: Contemporary Topics in Graduate Medical Education – Volume 2 [Internet]. IntechOpen; 2022 [cited 2023 Jun 12]. Available from: https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/77607

2.         Hund AK, Churchill AC, Faist AM, et al. Transforming mentorship in STEM by training scientists to be better leaders. Ecol Evol [Internet]. 2018 [cited 2023 Jun 12];8(20):9962–74. Available from: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ece3.4527

Something for a lay person about COVID – 19.

As confirmed cases of COVID-19 near 1 milllion worldwide, there are lots of scientific developments coming up such as, coronavirus survivors’ plasma having potential to save lives, loss of taste and smell being an important symptom for COVID – 19 even though it hasn’t yet been added to WHO’s COVID-19 symptom list, and the jury on whether COVID-19 is airborne or not. Coronavirus has an incubation period of 2-14 days. The most common symptoms of COVID-19 on the WHO symptom list are dry cough, tiredness and fever. However, some people may develop more severe forms of the disease such as pneumonia and “Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome” a.k.a. “SARS” or “Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome” also called “ARDS”. In these severe cases fluids can leak into the lungs collecting in air sacs and making it difficult for the lungs to transfer oxygen from the air to the blood. This is when people are put on respirators to help with breathing by delivering oxygen to the lungs via high-flow oxygen therapy or mechanical ventilation while treating the disease. Pneumonia appears to be the main cause of death.

Approximately 20-30% of hospitalized patients with COVID-19 and pneumonia have required intensive care for respiratory support. The older population has shown to be the most vulnerable especially if they already had an underlying health condition.
The case fatality rate (the ratio of the number of deaths with specific illness divided by the total number of persons with given disease condition) was estimated around 2.3% from the first large batch of Wuhan data, which would be 20x more than the commonly accepted value for the flu of 0.1%. The most accurate estimate may be from the Diamond Princess: https://cmmid.github.io/topics/covid19/severity/diamond_cruise_cfr_estim
ates.html, where we get around 1.2%. A summary from some article Aerosol & Surface Stability of SARS-CoV-2:https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMc2004973, suggests that the highly contagious novel coronavirus can remain viable and infectious in droplets in the air for hours and on surfaces for days and perhaps the most disturbing is aerosolized droplets remaining viable suspended in air for up to 3 hours though It’s unclear how this may impact room turnaround time.

COVID-19 will be with us until the vast majority of us are immune. And it will be a serious medical problem until we have a very good treatment plan and vaccines to curb the virus. Countries all over the world are reasonably doing well about “Flattening the curve” which ideally means reducing the rate of spread of the virus. Our governments are doing all what they can as much as possible at the moment and countrymen and women have also been so good about observing handwashing, hand sanitizing, social distancing, cleaning public use surfaces like grocery carts, and wearing masks. This will slow the covid-19 spread down but it will not eliminate it. And also, the number of people who are ignoring the measures and directives that their respective governments are bringing up every now and then, is small but not zero yet this virus is quite contagious. This virus doesn’t take holidays and read books as well.
We cannot continue with self isolation forever. It’s now time for us to start preparing for a “new normal”. We must continue with observing our hand hygiene, cleaning surfaces, social distancing, mask wearing until we have the right vaccine or effective treatments. If we don’t take action, then we are risking restarting the exponential curve. Cities and towns need to provide handwashing stations, and businesses with sinks need to ensure that these facilities are fully functioning. A hand sanitizer should be everywhere including everyone’s pocket. Cleaning wipes need to be everywhere that multiple people touch the same surfaces since the human coronaviruses can remain infectious on inanimate objects from 2hrs up to 9days.
We need to elbow bump and bow instead of shaking hands. We need to ban all crowds – music festivals, sports stadiums, church gatherings etc. We need to do take out instead of sitting in our favorite cafes. We need to minimize mass travels as well as going to bars and restaurants even though this will be inconvenient. We’ll have to watch our favorite musician performances, athletes, and religious teachings online.
Online education has to become a norm and team sports, class trips and assemblies will have to be on hold. Public health measures must be ramped up: we need to get tested regularly and massively and we need to also follow up contacts of those who are sick. Telehealth needs to become more available in order to help in for example case identification. Reliable information services about the pandemic in all languages need to published and broadcast with call in options for questions. Surge capability needs improvement – this means more hospitals, hospital beds and equipments including basics like personal protective equipments, ventilators and oxygen. We need to recruit, train and compensate more medical professionals, more first responders, and all the support staff for hospitals.
There some people who are being hurt terribly in this pandemic – we need to support the wait staff, ground crews, transportation workers, people who live hand by mouth etc, who wiil have no jobs in this period as some minority groups will be capable of working online. Food, electricity, water and housing sources for all need to be secured for these affected groups of people.
Is there anyone who can guarantee how long this will all need to be carried on for? Do you have a clue? Incase you do, feel free to drop it down in the comments section. Perhaps all our hope lies in the hands of people currently carrying out clinical research on SARS-COV-2. A But in case we don’t take up these measures, hundreds of thousands of people all over the world will sadly die and hence we need to start now.

ASSESSING YOUR LEARNING STYLE.

Owing to the 21st Century’s demand for life long learners, it’s helpful for you to develop your own strategy for learning because until you’ve learnt how to learn , then will you be able to learn something new. Learning Styles may be used at no cost for noncommercial purposes by individuals who wish to determine their own learning style profile and by educators who wish to use it for teaching, advising, or research. There are four broad dimensions of learning that learners of both today and yesterday have used or are definitely using. However its not a guarantee for one to have only one learning style but it should be a guarantee for one to strike a balance between different learning styles. It’s always good for a learner to keep testing each style in the quest of determination of their learning style. And also depending on the challenges before a Learner, he or she may find that they have got to employ another learning style so as to solve the challenges before hand. Active and Reflective Learners Everybody is active sometimes and reflective sometimes. Your preference for one category or the other may be strong, moderate, or mild. A balance of the two is desirable. If you always act before reflecting, you can jump into things prematurely and get into trouble, while if you spend too much time reflecting, you may never get anything done 😊 . “Let’s try it out and see how it works” is an active learner’s phrase; “Let’s think it through first” is the reflective learner’s response. If you are an active learner, you tend to retain and understand information best by doing something active with it—discussing it, applying it, or explaining it to others. Reflective learners prefer to think about it quietly first. Sitting through lectures without getting to do anything physical but take notes is hard for both learning types but particularly hard for active learners. Active learners tend to enjoy group work more than reflective learners, who prefer working alone. Sensing and Intuitive Learners. Everybody is sensing sometimes and intuitive sometimes. Here too, your preference for one or the other may be strong, moderate, or mild. To be effective as a learner and problem solver, you need to be able to function both ways. If you overemphasize intuition, you may miss important details or make careless mistakes in calculations or hands-on work; if you overemphasize sensing, you may rely too much on memorization and familiar methods and not concentrate enough on understanding and innovative thinking. Even if you need both, which one best reflects you? Sensors often like solving problems by well-established methods and dislike complications and surprises. Intuitors like innovation and dislike repetition. Sensors are more likely than intuitors to resent being tested on material that has not been explicitly covered in class. Sensing learners tend to like learning facts; intuitive learners often prefer discovering possibilities and relationships. Sensors tend to be patient with details and good at memorizing facts and doing hands-on (laboratory) work; intuitors may be better at grasping new concepts and are often more comfortable than sensors with abstractions and mathematical formulations. Sensors tend to be more practical and careful than intuitors; intuitors tend to work faster and to be more innovative than sensors. Sensors don’t like courses that have no apparent connection to the real world. Visual and Verbal Learners In most college classes, very little visual information is presented: students mainly listen to lectures and read material written on whiteboards, in textbooks, and on handouts. Unfortunately, most of us are visual learners, which means that we typically do not absorb nearly as much information as we would if more visual presentation were used in class. Effective learners are capable of processing information presented either visually or verbally. Visual learners remember best what they see—pictures, diagrams, flowcharts, time lines, films, and demonstrations. Verbal learners get more out of words—written and spoken explanations. Everyone learns more when information is presented both visually and verbally. Sequential and Global Learner. Sequential learners tend to follow logical, stepwise paths in finding solutions; global learners may be able to solve complex problems quickly or put things together in novel ways once they have grasped the big picture, but they may have difficulty in explaining how they did it. Sequential learners tend to gain understanding in linear steps, with each step following logically from the previous one. Global learners tend to learn in large jumps, absorbing material almost randomly without seeing connection, and then suddenly “getting it.” I know very well that after most people have read this description they may conclude incorrectly that they are global learners since everyone has experienced bewilderment followed by a sudden flash of understanding. What makes you global or not is what happens before the light bulb goes on. Sequential learners may not fully understand the material, but they can nevertheless do something with it (like solve the homework problems or pass the Test) since the pieces they have absorbed are logically connected. Strongly global learners who lack good sequential thinking abilities, however, may have serious difficulties until they have the big picture. Even after they have it, they may be fuzzy about the details of the subject, while sequential learners may know a lot about specific aspects of a subject but may have trouble relating them to different aspects of the same subject or to different subjects. Guess what’s left now 😲, Adapt Your Style. And always remember that the more senses we use in learning, the better we retain what we have learnt in our minds.

How the use of technologies can provide the infrastructure and basis for addressing many of the challenges in providing medical education in developing countries.

There is a vast number of lives which have been saved due to technological advancements in medical education, which varies considerably over seas because of the different methods for teaching medical students. The initial training in medical education is divided up into preclinical and clinical studies, in both of which technology has been involved in some nations. Tech has got both a dark and bright side but with the benefits far outweighing the disadvantages. I’ll focus on how tech has been and how it can be used to enhance and provide patient care. There are a lot of factors which are rapidly changing the medical education such as change in health care environment, research and innovation. Benefits of tech include improving of decision making, enhancement of acquiring of basic knowledge, fostering of team work and improvement in psychomotor learning among others. Some of the technology which has been employed or would need to be employed in nations whose health sector isn’t doing well, includes the following. Simulation. It’s aim is to imitate real patients, anatomic regions, or clinical tasks, and/or mirror the real-life circumstances in which medical services are rendered. The type of stimulation used at our university teaching hospital in Uganda is one which involves embedding of computer controls in a mannequin then use this setup to provide patient care management. However its use still needs more focus and concentration on because its not widely used in the teaching hospital which has led to the death of quite a number of patients as result of being managed by medical students who aren’t yet very competent with the clinical skills. However in some countries virtual reality stimulation has been launched which remains a source admiration for us. Wearable technologies. A wearable device is used for tracking a wearer’s vital signs or health and fitness related data, location, etc. Due to the on going digital revolution in the health care sector, medical wearables such as Google glass with artificial intelligence are providing an added value to healthcare with a focus on aiding early diagnosis, improving adherence to treatment, enhancing of patient monitoring, saving health care costs, improving information registry and enabling doctors to be able to make smarter and sharper decisions. Such technology however to some extent remains an impratical dream for our health care settings in my country. And due to its lack, this has made the work of many health care personnels tedious. However the newly set up faculty of applied sciences at our university is working upon on development of such technologies for example devices which can be used to track the patients compliance to medication. Mobile applications. These are routinely used by students for medical questions, patient management, and treatment decisions. Medical apps for iPhones and Android devices have eased students lives especially those who find reading books of large volumes as a challenge but such applications have also provided students with a quick review the medical knowledge at critical moments like on ward rounds. Although many focus on anatomy and physiology, biochemistry, some of them handle medical problem solving, diagnosis, and treatment. However it would be pretty nice if universities had there own websites from which students would access learning aids like references of such applications. Education of undergraduate medical students can be enhanced through the use of computer-assisted learning. For example the use of flipped classrooms in which students review a lecture online before the lecture session, and go to the classroom to have an interactive session with the lecturer. The time which the lecturer would be used to lecture would then be spent on further explanation of complex issues or discussing and solving questions in a more personalized guidance and interaction with students, instead of lecturing. This in addition equips students with prior knowledge about what they are to learn and it encourages them to be proactive. Until of recent has such a system been introduced in our university but even though, no such practice has been done by any lecturer. Such resolutions would help in solving some of the challenges medical students encounter like having to go over their reading materials over and over again because they attend lectures with prior knowledge which enables them to be more inquisitive in the lecture session. I believe that what technology holds for the future health care is more than what we may imagine today and I’m quite optimistic that tech will help in solving of all if not most of the challenges of health care sector.

The Journey Begins

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton