How the PWH Mentor Program guides aspiring healthcare leaders throughout their careers.
By Jenna Hughes
Beginning a career in healthcare presents an individual with many aspects of the industry to learn, understand, and feel comfortable with in order to be successful. This is especially true post-pandemic, as the healthcare industry has experienced many changes that industry professionals must continue to adapt to.
Seasoned industry professionals have continued to work throughout these changes, and through experience have discovered new ways to work, overcome obstacles, and remain confident throughout challenges. However, for individuals who have recently entered the industry, these skills may take time to learn and develop.
That’s where having a trusted mentor comes in. A mentor, or an experienced and trusted professional advisor, guides an individual throughout their career. Mentors take on a role that differs greatly from the role of a manager, boss, coworker, or friend. Instead, mentors provide more personalized, focused guidance that is free of evaluation or judgement.
“In the industry today, healthcare professionals face provider and staff shortages, supply chain disruptions, financial strain, and more; and as professionals in the industry, we’re left trying to juggle all of those balls, regardless of what role we’re in,” said Khaki Weber, DBA, RN, MBA, MHA, Partner at Weber & Associates Consulting, Inc., and PWH Member.
There is a distinct difference between the role of a mentor and a coach. According to Dr. Weber, a boss or manager should take on the role of a coach: “they may give an individual similar insights, feedback, or constructive criticism as a mentor would, but ultimately, they are in charge of you to judge and evaluate work within the parameters of success or failure. A mentor, however, does not evaluate your work, and therefore has a vested interest in their mentee’s personal and professional growth.”
Importance of mentorship
The goal of mentorship is to guide an individual throughout their career, and so a mentor relationship can be especially impactful for individuals that have just begun a career in the healthcare industry.
“Mentorship is a vital part of being able to keep up with the professional we want to be in our industry,” said Dr. Weber. These career-long professional relationships have the potential to benefit both the mentor and the mentee.
“Mentors get as much out of the relationship as mentees do, and what mentors also gain is the self-satisfaction and intrinsic motivation that exists within people who stand back to watch a person blossom and grow in their career,” said Dr. Weber. “We have to make sure that we feed our own, right in our own backyard, and build a pipeline of talent so that we can grow broad shoulders within the industry to help carry all of those complexities and those competing priorities that exist in healthcare.”
Mentors are defined as trusted advisors, and therefore, the sharing of experiences and insight within the relationship allows individuals with different skill sets, positions, and roles to share with one another, grow from a better understanding of the industry, and learn something new.
Critical business skills such as communication, how to differentiate from competitors, resiliency, etc. – and lessons related to these skills – can all be shared and gained within a mentor/mentee relationship.
“What a mentoring relationship does for both a mentee and a mentor is help build that total self-awareness, because with a mentor you’ve got an external view, and we all need that to really continue to grow and develop as people,” said Dr. Weber.
The beginning of the PWH Mentor Program
The Professional Women in Healthcare (PWH) Organization allows women entering the healthcare industry to seek guidance and advice through many different forms of industry-related programming. PWH started in 2004, when two of the founders attended the Health Industry Distributors Association (HIDA) Conference and noted to each other that there were few women attending. The healthcare supply chain industry has historically been a largely male-dominated industry. At that meeting, the two leaders decided that there should be a professional organization that brings together women professionals in healthcare.
The three tenants of PWH’s founding included (and remain today) mentorship, networking, and education. Mentoring is a significant part of the organization’s core structure, and has become much more formal and structured throughout the years.
At the beginning of the PWH Mentorship program, the mentorship committee was using software that used an algorithm to match mentors with mentees, which proved to be old, clunky, and ineffective in creating long-lasting matches.
The mentorship committee, as a result, considered a more personalized approach to mentorship matching, “talking with those who wanted to be mentees, and then going about making those matches with other PWH members. To this day, we’ve been using this personalized approach to the program for over three years, and it seems to be working. We have record mentoring relationships,” said Dr. Weber.
Career-long mentorship
Many women (and men) in the industry have benefitted from a space to share experiences and an opportunity to learn from other professionals through the PWH Mentor Circle Program, made up of a circle leader and 10-15 circle members.
Lauren McCann, Senior Ambulatory Care Specialist, B. Braun Medical, chose to participate in the PWH Mentor Circle Program so she could connect with other members of PWH, grow her perspectives, learn from others, and encourage other members along their career journeys.
“I had the ability to connect with other individuals in small group settings through the PWH Mentor Circle Program,” McCann said. “In one group, we discussed the qualities that make a good leader. The perspectives shared helped me to learn so much not only about myself, but also how to interact with different leadership characteristics and qualities to be successful. I walked away with a higher level of knowledge to put into practice in my career and personal life. I then went on to lead a Mentor Circle, where we discussed how to best communicate within the professional and personal avenues of our lives.”
Other individuals Repertoire spoke to have benefited from one-on-one mentorship. Karen Bergenholtz, Vice President of Customer Implementation and Education, Enclara Pharmacia (A Humana Company), serves as a mentor for two individuals through PWH. She meets with the mentees every three to four weeks, and also on an as-needed basis for anything that may come up within their careers.
“As an aspiring female leader in healthcare and business, it is often very difficult to find another female leader who has already walked the path to upper leadership,” said Bergenholz. “I am fortunate to have progressed to such a role professionally, and I wanted to help other females navigate the difficulty of growing professionally in an often male-dominated world. I have learned a lot from decisions I have made, and I feel it is important to share this perspective to other women.”
Men also participate in mentorship within PWH. Scott Quilty, Principal and Founder of SIXPOINT Advisors, became interested in the program because of Dr. Khaki Weber.
“Motivated by the founders’ mission and with a personal connection of having four daughters – one of whom is now a company owner and PWH member – I saw the chance to make a meaningful impact in the industry,” said Quilty.
Quilty felt that his personal career experience could assist others in their own journey. “As an executive in two large corporations, I recognized the opportunity to create opportunities for talented women within those organizations,” he said.
Impact of mentorship
As a female nurse, Bergenholz said that even in today’s workforce, the number of leadership positions held by women in the industry decrease as one moves up the organizational ladder, despite many entry level opportunities for women in healthcare. For this reason, she says, “It is important as women that we support our female peers by sponsoring them within our companies, coaching them, and mentoring them within the industry.”
Having a mentor that has already walked a similar professional path allows a mentee to ask questions about professional issues and obstacles that they may face in their career. Within these relationships, mentors should discuss how to navigate work-life balance, how to effectively work with a team and provide feedback to peers, and next steps to take within a professional career journey, said Bergenholtz.
The relationship between mentor and mentee is interpersonal, guiding both parties through whatever challenges and accomplishments they may experience throughout their professional lives.
Many of the current mentors in the PWH program express gratitude and ample positive impacts from the experience of participating both as a mentor and in mentor circles.
Said Quilty, “It has been rewarding to witness the positive influence of PWH on these individuals, and equally gratifying to see the contributions these gifted participants have made on the greater PWH community.”
“Being able to exchange ideas and hear the perspectives of others was very impactful. It is beneficial to hear thoughts of others that are outside of your organization,” said McCann. “By sharing in a mentor environment, we can develop new ideas and experience personal growth to propel us into the next steps in our careers. Being in such an environment fosters growth for the mentors and mentees.”
Importance of mentorship in med/surg industry
The importance of mentors to guide others in the med/surg industry is crucial, as the industry has experienced many changes recently due to technology advancements, moving forward from the pandemic, and more. Having someone who has experienced all of this can be of great benefit to an individual within the industry.
“It’s crucial to provide a trusted space for today’s med/surg professionals as they navigate important career decisions,” said Quilty. “Offering support to eager and talented individuals as they shape their path not only strengthens our industry but ultimately improves the products and services we deliver to healthcare professionals and their patients.”
Learning from others who have experienced industry changes is impactful, and even seasoned leaders can gain new knowledge from more recent industry entrants.
“This industry is constantly changing, and the best way to continue to adapt is to learn from others and find out new ways to look at situations and gain additional understanding. Through mentorship, individuals are given the opportunity to learn from others that have more experience, and even those that may have less experience. The bottom line is we all have different experiences that we can share to learn from one another to put into action for our own growth,” said McCann.
A mentor can be anyone in an individual’s professional career that will continue to support them, listen, and provide advice. Throughout an individual’s career journey, they may encounter numerous mentors who shape their career path and encourage them through professional outcomes.
“As people continue to grow and follow their career paths, their circumstances change, and they need a mentor who comes with that experience that will help them continue to go. Even very highly seasoned professionals in the industry still have mentors that they confide in,” said Dr. Weber. “Some PWH members refer to mentors as their ‘personal board of directors.’ In a nutshell, it is anyone you can go to professionally who will really listen, encourage, stretch you to think outside of the box, and expand our self-awareness.”