Mentoring in palliative medicine in the time of COVID-19

ABSTRACT

Background and aim: The COVID-19 pandemic has had significant ramifications upon clinical medical education. Restrictions on in-person face-to-face meetings and the limited mentoring support from redeployed physicians have compromised mentoring relationships and jeopardised mentoring programs in palliative medicine. The evidenced success of combined novice, peer-, near-peer and electronic-mentoring (CNEP) and interprofessional mentoring (IPM), together with palliative medicine's emphasis on interprofessional teamwork for holistic patient care, suggest that the concurrent application of CNEP and IPM (CNEPIPM) may be effective in addressing the continued geographical and manpower constraints in palliative medicine training amidst the COVID- 19 pandemic. This study thus aims to assess the viability and suitability of a CNEP-IPM mentoring approach in palliative medicine. Methods: With little known about this form of mentoring, a systematic scoping review (SSR) was carried out studying published accounts of CNEP and IPM. The Systematic Evidence Based Approach (SEBA) was adopted to enhance the trustworthiness, transparency and reproducibility of SSRs. Results: A total of 15,121 abstracts were reviewed, 557 full text articles were evaluated, and 92 articles were included. Concurrent content and thematic analysis revealed 4 themes/categories characteristics of CNEP and IPM, stages of CNEP and IPM, the roles of host organizations and assessment methods and criteria. Conclusions: This SSR evidences the viability of a CNEP-IPM approach and forwards an evidence-based framework for the design, implementation and evaluation of a CNEP-IPM mentoring program in palliative medicine. Further prospective studies and research into the program design, mentoring process, complex CNEP-IPM mentoring relationships, and the validation of robust evaluation tools are still required.