Getting into medicine - the long way

Excuse how high pitch and awful my voice sounds and how amateur the video is, its the first time I've attempted something like this!

This video is going to be part of our Med Mentors Introductory Session which has been moved to an online platform amid the recent COVID19 social distancing and I thought perhaps I'll share it here for anybody inside and outside of Deakin, in case they find it helpful in anyway.

Our introductory program usually has a handful of our generous medical students give a presentation about their journey to Deakin Medical School, followed by a panel discussion so that undergraduates can ask plenty of burning questions and get some helpful advice, finished with a break out session so undergraduate students can meet some of the medical students who are volunteering as Mentors this year before they sign up for one. Sad to see this event cancelled but keen to bring it to our undergrads online instead!!!

Med Mentors is a program I started last year at my school and has been something I'm super passionate about, excited to see what the new team this year and I can come up with to still make a positive impact and keep the program moving forward in these unprecedented times.

About Med Mentors:

Bullying and harassment has been described as ‘the most destructive phenomenon plaguing medical culture’.

This statement was the original inspiration for the conception and foundation of the Med Mentors Program.

After completing research for an ethic’s assignment, it became clear from data released from the Australian Senate and the barrage of media updates in recent years, including that published by the AMA, that the environment of bullying and harassment many of our junior doctors face is a multifactorial and ongoing problem that will need many avenues and approaches to help institute real change for future generations of medical professionals.

Much of the research pointed towards the competitive environment junior doctors, medical students and even undergraduate students dreaming of pursuing a career in medicine all endure, contributing to the current bullying culture within our hospitals today. Helping create a collaborative and supportive environment within this ever-increasing competitive culture is critical to combating future incidences of bullying and harassment in the workplace.

Med Mentors has been designed to tackle the problem from where it first stems. This program focuses on breaking through some of the competitive and toxic mentality and behaviours formed as early in a doctor’s career as during their undergraduate studies prior to applying for post graduate medicine. Targeting all undergraduate cohorts, but with a specific focus on science and biomedicine cohorts, who claim the highest reported incidence of a negative competitive student culture and lack of support when applying for medical school. These negative mindsets and behaviours are often fostered during ambitious undergraduate studies and then taken through to medical school and cultivated right through into the hospital.

Students report instances when observing peers intentionally undermine each other in front of supervising medical staff to better their own reputation. Overtime these types of behaviours become pervasive and largely ignored, accepted as the norm within the profession and allowed to perpetuate from student culture to professional culture and vice versa.

Our program looks at reaching out to this cohort of students and breaking some of the barriers and built up ‘secrecy’ and competition surrounding the application process, by pairing interested undergraduate students within Deakin University with a current Deakin Medical student to answer any ‘silly’ questions student might fear asking peers, to feel supported through their difficult journey, to have a friendly face within the medical school should they be successful in their application and importantly to create ongoing support networks.

This programs main objective is that by the time participating students have graduated and become colleagues working in the hospital together, a culture of sharing, support and mentorship has been developed and become a deep seeded part of the next generations culture, and will be passed on through each generation to come, in order to contribute to combating the current climate of competition and bullying.

Our program looks at becoming a multileveled approach over time as the years of the program continue. This year begins with pairing our ongoing mentorships between medical students and a wide range of undergraduate students. In coming years these relationships will continue to expand including more undergraduate students each year and as these students then enter into medical school they too can then become a mentor, as many have already expressed a keen interest in. We hope to see many of our mentees be accepted at medical schools across Australia and that mentee involvement encourages similar programs to begin in all medical schools as our mentees become mentors.

As well as this expansion, the existing mentoring relationship then continues as the undergraduate transitions into medical school and throughout their journey in medicine with a peer who is a few years ahead of them to find support in. The program is then looking to evolve as our current Med Mentors then begin internship, becoming junior doctors, they will continue to mentor medical students and support their transition and so on.

Another factor to the bullying and harassment incline suggested in the literature, involves the hierarchical nature of medicine and the power imbalance between junior doctors and their superiors, contributing to an underlying degree of acceptance for bullying and harassment during medical training.

Med Mentors looks at breaking through this hierarchical power imbalance from the beginning of medical education and foster supportive and encouraging mentorships early in our training to instil these positive communication, cooperation, and mentoring skills in our future generation of superior medical staff.

With the support of Deakin’s School of Medicine, this program has taken a lot of work to get off the ground and has been incredibly successful so far. All of the undergraduate students and medical students involved have given heartening feedback about their participation, feeling inspired and encouraged by the opportunity to be part of a mentoring relationship and looking forward to where they can take the opportunities within this program and their career in the future.

Mental health is extremely important in any profession but arguably even more so for a doctor who is looking after the mental health and wellbeing of their patients as well as themselves.

Although Med Mentors is in it’s early stages and only one of many avenues aimed at creating an ongoing positive impact on the mental health of training doctors and the culture within medicine, it is a big step in the right direction. This program will continue advocating for the wellbeing of our future junior doctors, promoting ethical behaviour within our hospitals and medical schools by cultivating a culture of cooperation, communication, respect and support at all levels of medical training. Within Med Mentors we strongly believe that students can be the stop to this perpetual cycle if given the right support.