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Dosimetry Student: Joanne Li

Mentoring Activity
August 1, 2016
Mentorship in Medical Dosimetry
Mentorship is a professional partnership between the mentor and mentee in a culture or
profession.1 In this relationship, academic learning and success land a common ground for the
experienced mentor and the learner mentee. It is not a simple teaching or giving process, but a
mutual beneficial relationship between mentor and mentee.2 Effective mentoring facilitates a
sense of satisfaction and career advancement for the mentor and academic success and
productivity for the mentee. As like the other academic medicine, the professional training of
Medical dosimetry solely includes academic education and clinical practice. Mentorship plays an
essential role in this process, especially for students who want to enter the Medical Dosimetry
field to seek self-development, career productivity, and advancement.
Effective mentoring is important in Medical Dosimetry. Either the medical dosimetrist as
an educator or clinical preceptor, he/she serves as a light in the guidance of young generation to
enter this field. With their expert experience, knowledge, skills, and constructive theories in the
field, the effective mentors are role models of what the mentees want to be.3 Not everyone with
experienced knowledge and skills could become an effective mentor. Teaching is a basic skill in
mentoring. Good leadership and communication skills are also important components of being
an effective mentor. Good mentors must be open minded and willing to share their experience
and knowledge with the mentees to develop a mentoring partnership. They must have a strong
self-motivation of a desire of pursuing an opportunity to advance their careers. They must be
easily approachable to mentees. They should have good self-awareness of what they can do and
cannot do and self-control of what they should do and should not do for the mentees. The goal of
mentoring is to facilitate the mentees active thinking on what have learned, not simply tell the
mentees what to do. Effective mentoring in Medical Dosimetry promotes positive influences of
young generations interests in entering this field. It also improves their career retention,
confidence in practice, and motivation of pursuing self-development and career advancement.
However, ineffective mentoring in Medical dosimetry has unaccountable negative
impacts to mentees. It can cause mentees frustration, confusion, and delay in development
which would in turn create the mentees grave doubt about the original decision of entering the

field. As I mentioned earlier, not everyone is good at mentoring. My first clinical preceptor is a
nice person. He is one of the most experienced and skilled dosimetrists in the clinic. I ever felt
very lucky to have him as my preceptor. Honestly, I was even very impressed about his skills and
experience in dosimetry. He ever was my mentor, a good dosimetrist I want to be. Unfortunately,
he failed in mentoring. He was too busy to invest his time in mentoring me on a regular basis. I
was so hesitated to come to him with questions because more likely he would tell me he would
help me later or give him five minutes but later for him truly means a day or even longer time
and I had to keep reminding him. I even felt very guilty to bother him with questions. He always
said I was too early to learn his planning skills (mostly he does SBRT planning). Without having
the opportunities of hands-on practice and systemic mentoring from basic treatment planning
skills, I really had a hard time to understand and remember what he was showing me to create a
SBRT plan. I got so confused and frustrated. I was very diffident about communicating my
frustration and anxiousness on learning pace with my clinical coordinator and my formal
preceptor who is the supervisor of my clinical preceptor. In my beginning of my clinical study
and being the first student in the center, we both did not know how to prioritize the tasks to
achieve the clinical study goals. Obviously, this ineffective mentoring created tension between
the mentor and the mentee, and could not lead to completion, academic success, scholarly
productivity, and career achievement.1 Luckily, it was not too late to make the change and seek
more good mentors. My current mentor is another experienced dosimetrist. She taught me how to
create a plan with a certain technique by motivating my own understanding and thoughts of how
and why to do that way, and guided me to reach my clinical goals with constructive feedbacks.
My experience about ineffective mentoring demonstrates the importance of effective mentoring
to medical dosimetry students.
Nevertheless, mentorship is undervalued in Medical Dosimetry. The training process is
not conducted formally and evaluated periodically with standards. The experienced individuals
may not be a good mentor. The learning process is not only mentees responsibilities either. The
mentorship is a two-way relationship between mentors and mentees. The mentor can also be a
mentee of the other person. Mentoring is not only to dosimetry students, but also peers, patients,
or the family members, and vice versa. Mentoring is a process of learning and growing for both
mentors and mentees. The mentors are rewarded with a sense of satisfaction, skill improvement,
and career advancement while the mentees gain new knowledge, skills, and advices.

Mentoring is a practice of teaching, leadership, and communication skills. It is a learning

process for mentor and mentees. Mentorship plays a significant role in Medical Dosimetry.
Technologies in dosimetry develops so quickly. Everyone could only remember only one piece
of things. An effective mentorship is a positive input to the dosimetry profession. It creates a
supportive and learning environment for medical dosimetry students and the dosimetrists as well.
It inspires great motivation of the dosimetrists and dosimetry students for greater personal and
professional development.
References:
1. Lenards, N. Mentoring. [SoftChalk}. La Crosse, WI: UW-L Medical Dosimetry
Program;2016.
2. Sambunjak D, Straus SE, Marusic A. Mentoring in academic medicine: A systematic
review. JAMA. 2006;296(9):1103-1115. http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.296.9.1103
3. Mentoring: A mutually beneficial partnership. Retrieved from MindTools website.
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newCDV_72.htm Accessed August 3, 2016.

Appendix A

Medical Dosimetry Student: Joanne Li

Mentoring interview with Kaylee Voorhies RT
August 1, 2016
Q1: what mentorship means to you?
I think mentorship means having somebody who is leading another person in kind of maybe take
the amounts of their ways showing their actions, how to, not necessarily how to behave, but in
kind of the way things go, and teaching mentees.
Q2: how do you differ teaching and mentoring?
I think they are very similar. They definitely go hand in hand. Teachers are often mentors, and
mentors often teach somethings. I think teaching is more like fact base, like I can teach you
concepts, I can teach you how to do something; and mentoring is more like behavior and
situations. You can teach somebody like how to do something or how to act in that situation, give
you the idea what to do in that situation.
Q3: what do you need to consider before becoming an effective mentor?
I think you need to realize yourself as a role model. You need to know that people are looking up
you and seeing you as an example. Try to keep your emotion and checkings in a situation, and try
to set a good example for the other people.
Q4: what is your motivation to be a mentor?
As a radiation therapist, my motivation to be a mentor is my passion for the job. If you feel really
passionate about the field you want to mentor people. You want to teach them the things and
show the things in kind of you cannot help being excited what you are doing, which is a sense of
self-satisfaction.
Q5: Are you somebodys mentor?
I dont see specifically, but we do have students who come through and new staff. We do a lot of
training. Being in the simulation room most of the time, I kind of mentor students or medical
residents who come in for a day. They dont know whats going on, they dont really know what
to ask. So I explain to them what it is this stuff like that. Its kind of teaching based to mentor
somebody.
Q6: how do you address the challenges in the mentorship accountability?
Its kind of related to the role model, somebody is looking at you mentoring. You have to keep
your emotion away. If something happened through your work day that upsets you. You need to

tell yourself that I need to handle this professionally, instead of kind of getting upset, not
handling constructively. You have to think of, OK, somebody is looking at me, and see how I
react to this. I want them to learn how to react to the situation. So I need to check myself to
make sure I handle it the way I should. Its hard, but good for mentoring. Nobody is going to be
perfect. It helps you to develop self-awareness.
Q7: What are your advices about how to find good mentors?
I think you have be open minded about it. Look for things from a lot of different people. When I
was a student, I remember I met so many different people through my rotations. Somebody you
naturally like. I like them how to do things, I want to be like that when I am done. You have to be
open minded to take look at from everybody you met, and develop your own styles of how you
goanna work and process.
Q8: what are your opinions on how to successfully transit to a mentor from mentee?
I think you have to keep in mind that you are always probably going to be both. I think that make
you better. I still have to learn how to learn, how to handle the situations, well train and mentor
the other people. So the kind of keeping that part in checking that you never know everything all
the time and how to do exactly every time. there are always some things more to kick in and
more to growth. Stay confident. Dont close the door of learning.
Q9: What would you do if you are told opposite things by your mentors?
Thats hard to go through. But you kind of have to like seek more and ask more questions, try to
understand why they gave you different answers, things provoke more, and figure out why. You
might have to kind of form your own opinion on the matter. Things like fact based, you might
have to say Ok, this is how this person handled, that is how this person does. You have to try to
be open minded to understand peoples different perspectives.
Q10: do you still actively seek out mentorship? Who are your current mentors?
Yes, I do. Because of the growth thing, its cool to make your career. You need to open it and
meet somebody. Taking a little bit something from them. I just joined the exam committee in
radiation therapy, and found its so interesting. Taking that experience and using as a mentorship
experience. Its kind of bring back to what I am doing in my daily life. Somebody like Fur
(another senior RT) is my mentor since when I was a student here. She is kind of the same
person. She always understands how to teach you, and how to understand her teaching methods.
There are always something you can learn from somebody who have been in this field for a long

time, and take stuff from students too. Some students come through, and you kind of think Oh, I
didnt know about that. Thanks for showing me about that. You have to be open to it, not like
Oh, you are new. You dont know how it is. You have to make sure you are open for learning
new things.

Appendix A
Medical Dosimetry Student: Joanne Li

Mentoring interview with Mary Hare

August 1, 2016
Questions for mentoring interview
Q1: what mentorship means to you?
Mentorship means to me is helping someone to learn a process. It is not just an individual thing,
but multiple things.
Q2: how do you differ teaching and mentoring?
I had to think about this a lot because I never really put these two together. They are very similar
except I see teaching is more about teaching somebody facts and figures but mentoring I see is
about facts and figures as well as thought process, more intangible and immeasurable things,
appreciation, concepts to help pull out the information together, maybe more historical and
perspective. So there is more in depth of understanding of what the end of the project is supposed
to be.
Q3: what do you need to consider before becoming an effective mentor?
I think you need to consider your own capacities. Before you become a mentor, you have to be
comfortable and confident with subjects that you are helping someone else. If you dont know it
inside and out of yourself, its hard to help someone to learn.
Q4: what is your motivation to be a mentor?
In general, I feel mentorship is very important to me because everyone has to, you know we all
try to achieve the same goal. People have to be educated in every aspect of what we are doing
and what needs to be done. One thing I learned through the years is nobody is indispensable.
That means that if I would die tomorrow nobody would miss me. (That sounds a tough example)
*laughs* It is a tough example. People are going to continue to work and continue to do things
just because other people are doing things different to how you do. Its OK! Its OK! The would
moves on. Because the next generation needs to learn, and we are not going to be here forever.
Somebody has to be prepared to take over when we are not around anymore. The next generation
has to be prepared. A lot of people ever helped me, I feel I need to help the other people. I
learned so many things from wonderful people through the years. In order for people to learn,
they have to be people who are willing to teach and mentor.
Q5: how do you address the challenges in the mentorship?

Sometimes people are not open to be taught. They say they want to learn, but not really. You
gave them the information. They would think why do I need to know it? If people are resistant
to learn, it is a struggle. Even though they are in school and they need to learn. Even outside of
school in a professional environment, if people had their own ideas and are not open to develop
different ideas, that is a struggle. One of things with mentorship is not just give. I try to give my
perspectives, all perspectives, so people can understand the broader scoop why I do the way I do
it or someone may do things differently. That gives somebody the opportunity to make their own
idea to address the situation.
Q6: What are your advices about how to find good mentors?
Finding a good mentor is difficult. You have to find someone who is willing to be a good mentor.
I think people who are open to answer your questions, not just one-word answer, and who are
willing to describe more to you. I think the part of finding a good mentor is being a good mentee
to show your interests of learning. Not everybody could be a good mentor. I have to think about
myself how I found a good mentor. I think a lot of is being open about what people have to say.
You will see a transformation of people. There was someone who used to working here, who
other people always had hard time to work with this person. But I asked questions and had the
interests to be a good mentee to soften him, he became a good mentor for me with everyone else
had difficulty with him.
Q7: what are your opinions on how to successfully transit to a mentor from mentee?
I think this ties in with knowledge of the materials whatever you are going to teach this person. I
think they need to slide gap in there what you got the experience. You learn the advantages and
disadvantages. You learn from your mistake. It is so important to learn from your mistakes. I
think you need that time where you have to be responsible for yourself, make decisions, see the
outcomes with that decision, and gain that personal experience. That is what I said earlier being a
good mentor you have to have the solid foundation of what you metor, and you only get that
through personal experience.
Q8: What would you do if you are told opposite things by your mentors?
That happened all the time. You do what that person wants you to do at the time. *laughs* I see
its been a good thing because you will then get experience of doing different things in different
ways. So you can learn what is the best for you and how you will approach the problems. That

helps you understand why you are doing and what you are doing. Eventually you will form your
own style.
Q9: do you still actively seek out mentorship? Who are your current mentors?
Absolutely. We are always learning. We never stop learning. There is always somebody who has
different perspectives you can learn from and knows more than you do. I dont know everything.
Everybody could be my mentor. Everybody has different experience and perspectives; Ive
always learned from other people. You pick up a piece of information here and there, and you
work into your own philosophies and how you do things.