Mentors place these benefits high on the list of opportunities they want for their mentees because they come at a reduced price that is much more economical than any other “tuition” they will ever pay.
Why We Still Make Time to Mentor
As mentors, we expand our students’ world of learning as we guide and educate them and as we introduce them to our own mentors in the field. As National Institutes of Health/Canadian Institutes of Health Research–funded researchers and educators at our own institutions, we find our role as mentors to be rewarding and exactly what is needed in today’s challenging funding arena.
We are at a juncture where it is crucial to enthusiastically support research training to recruit and retain young, promising researchers in the field and help them establish a track record of grants and publications. We fully believe that the seeds planted early in a research career will bear bountiful and continuing returns over time.
We follow the careers and successes in clinical research of each of the young researchers we have mentored with great pride, and it is safe to say that not one mentee has ever let us down in his or her quest for answers. We marvel at their capacity to set and surpass goals.
We appreciated having the ears (and brains) of accomplished, senior investigators interested in our research, and aim to foster collegial exchanges among all levels of researchers to support the growth of young investigators. The future of rheumatologic care and research is in the hands of the talented young professionals who join our association and who walk the halls of your institutions. Their research and teaching efforts hold great promise for our field and our future, and we are proud to serve as mentors to the next generation.
For more information on how you can mentor the next generation of rheumatology health professionals, visit www.rheumatology.org/ARHP.
Dr. Hannan, of the Institute for Aging Research at Hebrew SeniorLife and Harvard Medical School in Boston, served as ARHP president in 1997–1998. Dr. Backman, of the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, served as ARHP president in 2005–2006.
