Peer-to-Peer Mentoring Bridges Disciplines and Institutions

Developing effective mentoring relationships is essential for launching a career as a clinician-investigator in aging research. In medicine, the traditional mentoring model pairs a mentee with a mentor in his or her home institution and specialty. But aging research is inherently interdisciplinary. And even at major academic medical centers, a mentor for aging research may be hard to find.

“Unfortunately, there’s a dearth of experts around the country who have an interest and or expertise in aging research,” says Mathew Maurer, MD, Arnold and Arlene Goldstein Professor of Cardiology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, Vagelos College of Physicians & Surgeons, and director of the Clinical Cardiovascular Research Laboratory for the Elderly.

Clin-STAR and other programs supported by the National Institute on Aging are working to address the need for interdisciplinary and cross-institutional mentorship in aging research, at the same time seeking participation from clinical disciplines beyond medicine and surgery. Clin-STAR’s mentoring resources help provide access to expert mentorship for those who cannot find it locally, and its Pilot Grant program requires junior researchers to find mentors outside of their home institutions and specialties.

Dr. Maurer, an in-demand mentor for cardiology and aging research, advocates peer mentorship as an important resource for the development of early-career faculty. “Many individuals who are from a similar peer group are experiencing the same issues, and they can learn from each other’s experiences,” says Dr. Maurer. “Take someone two years into their K award versus five years – the person with five years’ experience can give pretty good advice, probably the same advice I would give.”

He tested the idea of facilitated peer mentorship with support from a K24 grant. Beginning in 2016 he brought together 15 mentee participants from five states and six medical specialties in the Columbia University Mentor Peer Aging Research (CoMPAdRE) program. “The theme was aging cardiovascular research,” says Dr. Maurer. “Having said that, not everyone was a cardiologist. Ruth Masterson Creber was a nurse interested in heart failure and cardiovascular disease. There was a psychologist, a nephrologist, a pulmonologist. The underlying tenet behind CoMPAdRE was that in order to tackle the complex issues related to an aging society and aging physiology, we need a diverse group of scientists from different backgrounds working together and aligned around aging.”

Ruth Masterson Creber, PhD, RN, FAAN, FAHA, associate professor of Population Health Sciences at Weill Cornell Medical College, had sought out Dr. Maurer as a mentor on her K99 award, even before participating in the peer mentoring program. She says that “we built relationships by having working and learning together on the retreats.” Having peers who were MD’s became especially valuable when she was on the job market as a nurse-scientist. Dr. Masterson Creber credits her appointment in a school of medicine in part to her pre-existing relationships with physicians there who wanted to collaborate with her.

She adds that, “Bringing people together from different institutions is powerful for the mentees’ future network. One of the most important things, especially for women and underrepresented minorities, is developing a national network and social capital. Having a CoMPAdRE peer network across the country leads to natural collaborations between institutions. That’s critical for early career investigators.”

Now that she has an established federally-funded program of research and many mentees of her own, Dr. Masterson Creber advises early career investigators “to move away from reliance on a dyadic model of mentorship. Trying to find the perfect mentor in aging research is not as productive for the mentee and it puts a lot of pressure on the mentor. I encourage people to think about mentorship teams, and facilitated peer mentorship, because that’s as important as the scientific mentors.”

To those starting on the path of aging research, she also adds, “start mentoring early in your career. Thinking like a mentor from the beginning gives you insight into how to get constructive input from your own mentor. It also fosters a philosophy of serving and giving back, exchanging ideas, and generosity. I think that’s really needed across academic medicine, and I think we need it for our patients. The more that we can instill that spirit, the healthier the whole environment will be.”