Importance of Mentoring on Workplace Engagement of Emergency Medicine Faculty: A Multi-institutional Study.

INTRODUCTION: Mentoring in emergency medicine (EM) has not been well studied despite a larger body of literature that has described the value of mentoring in academic medicine on career satisfaction and scholarly output. Over half of all EM faculty nationally are of junior faculty ranks. The aim of this study was to identify the frequency and types of mentoring in EM, how types of mentoring in EM differ by gender, and how mentoring correlates with workplace satisfaction for EM faculty. METHODS: Using descriptive statistics and chi-squared analysis, we analyzed data from a cohort of medical schools participating in the Association of American Medical Colleges StandPoint Faculty Engagement Survey. RESULTS: A total of 514 EM faculty from 26 medical schools replied to the survey. Nearly 80% of EM faculty reported receiving some sort of mentoring; 43.4% reported receiving formal mentoring; 35.4% reported receiving only informal mentoring; and 21.2% received no mentoring at all. Women EM faculty received formal mentoring at lower rates than men (36.2% vs 47.5%) even though they were more likely to report that formal mentoring is important to them. Workplace satisfaction was highest for faculty receiving formal mentoring; informally or formally mentored faculty reported higher workplace satisfaction than faculty who are not mentored at all. Unmentored faculty are less likely to stay at their medical school than those formally mentored (69.8 % vs 80.4%). CONCLUSION: Institutions and department chairs should focus on mentoring EM faculty, particularly women, to increase engagement and reduce attrition.

In-flight medical events and aircraft diversions: one airline's experience.

BACKGROUND: An aging population combined with the increasing mobility of people with acute and chronic illnesses could make an increase in the frequency of in-flight medical events aboard commercial aircraft likely. OBJECTIVE: To determine the incidence of each type of in-flight medical complaint, the appropriateness of medical kit contents, which factors lead to aircraft diversion, and which factors effect the appropriateness of the decision to divert. METHOD: Medical complaints reported aboard a sample airline from July 1, 1999 through June 30, 2000 were studied. The frequency of aircraft diversion was related to complaint and medical assistance provided. The appropriateness of the decision to divert was determined as a function of hospital admission rates. RESULTS: There was an incidence of 22.6 medical complaints per million passengers and 0.1 deaths per million passengers. There were 210 diversions per million flights with one of every 12.6 incidents resulting in a diversion. When a passenger volunteer was used, they opened the medical kit 62% of the time. When a physician participated in the decision to divert the hospital admission rate was 49% versus 15% with no physician input. CONCLUSION: Variations in incidence of medical complaints cited in previous studies demonstrate the need for an industry-wide standardized reporting method of in-flight medical events. All in-flight medical complaints could likely have been adequately treated with the contents of the FM's newly mandated medical kits. Physician participation in decisions to divert aircraft should be sought as it is associated with more appropriate divert decisions.