The College has launched an innovative new mentoring programme for physicians, Enhance: Mentoring for Medics, which is available to all of their Fellows and Members. Enhance offers bespoke one-to-one mentoring from experienced consultants.
The General Medical Council (GMC) recognises that mentoring skills are important for ensuring that doctors deliver safe, effective and efficient care – something that the College has been mindful of when developing Enhance.
While the initial focus of Enhance is recently appointed consultants (RACs), it will become available to any of the College’s Fellows and Members going through a period of transition, or who are in challenging situation at work. This is a valuable and supportive addition to the College’s membership packages.
Building on A framework for Mentoring Principles by the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges and previous mentoring work by the College, Enhance uses an advanced mentoring platform to manage the mentoring process, and invests in professional training for the programme’s mentors.
The mentoring platform, which was developed by PLD, operates a cloud-based approach and includes matching tools with advanced matching algorithms. It helps find optimum matches and eliminates “unconscious bias”.
Building on its pre-existing mentor database, the College has developed tailored matching criteria to help Fellows and Members choose a suitable mentor, including:
Members of the College’s Recently Appointed Consultants (RAC) committee were integral in developing Enhance.
Dr Catherine Labinjoh, Consultant Cardiologist, from the (RAC) committee said:
Making the move from registrar to consultant is an exciting step in a doctor’s career but comes with a range of challenges and opportunities. Having a supportive mentor is vital in helping RACs deal with those challenges, and make the most of their career opportunities, while offering the best possible care to our patients.
It’s fantastic that the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh have listened to senior trainees and new consultants and designed the new mentoring scheme based on their needs. The PLD mentoring platform is a sophisticated yet user friendly approach to mentoring, which I’m confident will enhance the experience of physicians at important stages in their careers.
1.Visit the College’s new webpage for Enhance: Mentoring for Medics.
2.The PLD monitoring service we’re using can be found here.
3.The Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (“the College”) is an independent standard-setting body and professional membership organisation. The College’s aim is to improve and maintain the quality of patient care. The College helps qualified doctors to pursue their careers in specialist (internal) medicine through medical examinations, education and training. It also provides resources and information to support and facilitate professional development for physicians throughout their careers.
