The British Hip Society mentorship programme: Supporting the next generation

Sarah Eastwood, Joanna Maggs, Samantha Tross, Dominic RM Meek and Vikas Khanduja

Sarah Eastwood is Consultant T&O Surgeon North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS FT but moving onto Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Trust in September. She has helped set up the programme with other members of the team.

Joanna Maggs is a Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgeon in Torbay, Devon. She leads the Culture and Diversity Committee of the British Hip Society, and set up the BHS mentorship programme along with Sarah Eastwood, Dominic Meek and Samantha Tross.

Samantha Tross is Consultant Orthopaedic Hip and Knee Surgeon at London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust. She was appointed to Ealing Hospital in 2005. She has spent her career working with various schools and charities to increase the diversity pipeline.

Dominic Meek is a Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgeon in Glasgow, Scotland. He is President Elect of the British Hip Society, and help set up the BHS mentorship programme along with Sarah Eastwood, Joanna Maggs and Samantha Tross.

Vikas Khanduja is a Consultant Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgeon in Addenbrookes’s - Cambridge University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. He is the President of the British Hip Society and Trustee of NAHR, and has been involved in the development of the mentorship programme and is keen on widening its footprint and securing the future of the programme.

A mentor can be defined as ‘an experienced and trusted advisor’. The term originates from the Greek mythology and the guiding role played to Telemachus by Odysseus’ friend Mentor [1].

The value of mentorship has been recognised in most professions, from politics to international sports, and the GMC lists “willingness to take part in mentoring” as one of the duties of a doctor in the workplace [2]. Despite this, most mentoring relationships are informal, occurring by chance rather than through a designated process. Fewer than half of surgical trainees report having a surgical mentor [3], and those that do tend to describe their educational or clinical supervisor as filling this role, despite the assertion by some authors that mentorship should be separate from formal assessment processes [4].

There is much in the recent literature to highlight the importance of mentoring in the development of orthopaedic surgeons [5], and in addressing the under-representation of some groups in our profession, particularly the striking lack of women in orthopaedic surgery [6].

However, there is a relative paucity of literature which describes the mentorship schemes that exist and how they function.

This article highlights the steps that have been taken over the past two years to develop a mentorship scheme within the British Hip Society (BHS) and reflects on the achievements thus far. The process taken is demonstrated in Figure 1 with those highlighted in orange being recurring steps.

Figure 1: Process undertaken in the BHS mentorship programme.

Background

In September 2020, the BHS surveyed its members on their experience of mentorship. A small proportion of the membership responded with most reporting mentorship to be valuable and having a positive impact on their career development. On the basis of this report and as part of a wider ambition to increase diversity within the society, it was decided to establish the British Hip Society mentorship programme. The aim was to develop a scheme that would support personal as well as professional development. In particular, we wanted to provide opportunities for surgeons from minority groups to find mentors and also to help surgeons facing challenging situations or experiences within their careers.

We were fortunate that our early research led us to Emma Causer, co-founder of Plan B mentoring (www.planbmentoring.com). Plan B is an awardwinning scheme, launched in 2017 by three women to help the careers of aspiring females in the field of hospitality, through mentorship from those in executive and management positions; roles traditionally held by men. They provide a framework for mentoring and arrange professional connections for mentees. Plan B has been immensely successful over the first few years and now encompasses the hospitality, facilities management and digital sectors of industry with over 200 mentors. Emma was keen to share her passion with us and help us to empower women and those from other under-represented groups in our profession for which we are hugely grateful. The advice Emma provided about having mentor and mentee profiles and her description of Plan B speed-mentoring sessions have both been pivotal in shaping our mentorship scheme.

The development of the mentorship scheme

• Step 1 – Call for mentors: We launched the BHS Mentorship programme in early 2021. We invited BHS members and personal contacts to become mentors.

• Step 2 – Training mentors: Early engagement was very positive and by spring 2021 we were ready to start providing mentorship training. For this we engaged the services of Karen Picking, a leadership development consultant with a vast experience of mentoring and coaching who has previously worked with the BOA. We ran two interactive two-hour Zoom workshops covering key mentoring and coaching skills, such as active listening and skilful questioning. Mentors were introduced to the Egan Skilled helper model as a framework for conducting sessions with mentees. The workshops received positive feedback from those who attended. All attendees were provided with a certificate for purposes of appraisal.

• Step 3 – Website development: Mentors were asked to complete a profile of themselves for which we provided a template. We invited them to include information with regards to their gender, grade and geographical location but also the qualities and experience that they had which may be of interest to a mentee; both professional and personal experiences. Together with a picture, these profiles were uploaded to a dedicated website page. As more mentors came on board, the design of the website was changed to increase appeal. Potential mentors can now submit their profile directly from a link on the website: https://britishhipsociety.com/bhs-mentors

• Step 4 – Inviting mentees: We started to invite applications from mentees in summer 2021. We advertised through BOTA, BODS, BHS, social media and word of mouth from our mentors. We asked potential mentees to submit a profile statement, similar to that of our mentors, particularly focussing on what they hoped to achieve through a mentoring relationship. Again, mentees can submit this information using a link on the website.

• Step 5 – Mentor-mentee pairing: We started running virtual mentor-matching sessions on Zoom from September 2021. Mentors and mentees are paired together in breakout rooms where they can talk for 12-15 minutes at a time. Over the evening, mentees can meet up to four potential mentors. At the end of the evening both mentors and mentees are asked to indicate who they would like to be in a mentorship relationship with and, with mutual consent, pairings are established. Mentorship pairings have also been made by a direct request from a potential mentee to be introduced to a mentor.

• Step 6 – Feedback: We have sought feedback through setting up the scheme and are in the process of formalising how and when we gather this. Following the mentor-matching sessions, comments from mentees have included “incredibly helpful and reassuring exercise”, “very worthwhile discussions”, and “mentors have a lot to offer”.

• Step 7 – Ongoing support: We have set up WhatsApp group where mentors can share ideas or discuss challenges (while always respecting mentee confidentiality) and we are currently developing a resources section on the BHS mentorship website to which mentors and mentees will be able to contribute.

Discussion

As of early June 2022, we have more than 40 mentors and have received applications from 34 potential mentees. The geographical distribution of mentors is demonstrated in Figure 2 which is the map displayed on our webpage enabling people to search for a mentor by region, should they wish. Mentee applications have been received from people across the spectrum of grades as demonstrated in Figure 3. Whilst half of applications have been received from people in core training or higher specialty training, we are pleased that we appeal to a wider spectrum including those who currently work outside the UK.

Figure 2: Geographical distribution of mentors.

Figure 3: Grade of mentee applicants.

One recent study highlighted the lack of exposure to trauma and orthopaedics during undergraduate study in UK medical schools, with a mean of 18 days spent in the specialty (range 3 to 60 days) [7]. We have been encouraged by the applications from seven medical students (20.6%), five of whom are female. We hope that our mentorship scheme, combined with other initiatives such as providing free places at the annual scientific meeting for medical students, will encourage a more diverse workforce of the future.

Gender disparity in T&O surgery has been widely documented. In the UK, only 7% of consultants in the specialty are female [8], whilst globally this varies from 0 to 26% [9]. Results from the BHS Membership Survey in 2021 demonstrated that 5% of members who responded identified as female. Through specific, targeted invitations to female hip surgeons in the UK, 32.5% of our current mentors are female. Similarly, 35.3% of mentee applicants are female (Figure 4). We hope that, by portraying positive role models through mentors, we can start to break down some of the perceived barriers that may exist for women considering a career in orthopaedics [6]. It will take time for our efforts to be reflected in the composition of the UK orthopaedic workforce, but we hope that with programmes such as ours, gender parity may be achieved in less than the 217 years predicted in one recent study [10].

Figure 4: Gender of mentors and mentee applicants.

Conclusion

The British Hip Society has had some early success with the development of a mentorship programme. To the best of our knowledge this is the first formal programme on mentoring within trauma and orthopaedics in the UK. In the future we look forward to collaborating with BOA and other specialist societies to support wider access to mentorship within T&O. •

References

References can be found online at: www.boa.ac.uk/publications/JTO.