By Shakeela Brown (third-year medical student), Professor Bridgette M Bewick, (chair in Psychological Health, Wellbeing, and Education; University of Leeds academic lead for Belonging; School of Medicine lead for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion), Professor Louise Bryant (Professor of Psychological and Social Medicine; Deputy Dean: Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion, Faculty of Medicine and Health).
Mentoring programs for students from racially minoritized backgrounds are of growing importance within medicine and health education to tackle current institutionalised racism (Woodhead et al., 2021; Tonkin, 2022).
The project’s objectives were:
- To identify and analyse the effectiveness of mentoring programmes for underrepresented students from ethnic-minority backgrounds in medicine and healthcare.
- To inform the development of a mentoring programme specifically for Black or of Black-heritage medical students at the University of Leeds’ School of Medicine.
We conducted a literature review using Arksey and O’Malley’s methodology for scoping reviews and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines (Moher et al., 2014; Arksey and O'Malley, 200).
We searched five journal databases – an initial search in August 2022, and an updated search in July 2023. The five databases were OOvid, Embase, EMBASE Classic, APA PsycInfo and ERIC. Articles were included in the project if their focus was on racially or ethnically minoritized medical or health-related undergraduate students receiving mentoring.
We identified eight articles for inclusion, all from the United States of America, published between 1999 and 2023.
The disciplines included one article each from psychology, public health, health sciences, nutrition and dietetics, and nursing, with three articles from psychology and medicine. The findings are currently being compiled for submission to a peer-reviewed journal.
The need for review – before and after
Our project found that mentoring for students from racialised minorities is valued, however before and after studies are required to test the effectiveness of any mentoring programme.
The preliminary results from our 2022 scoping review helped to develop the University of Leeds’ School of Medicine mentoring scheme for medical students of Black-heritage(s) pilot. Following the success of the pilot, the scheme will be offered to students again in 2023/24.