Transitioning into the role of a mentor is one of the most impactful ways to give back to the profession, yet many experienced practitioners can find this shift challenging. We explore how to define your mentoring style, set clear expectations, and foster the independence your mentee needs to thrive in their professional journey.

The Art of Mentoring as a Dental Practitioner

As dental practitioners, we accumulate knowledge, skills, wisdom and experience throughout our career that become a valuable resource to pass on to the next generation. One way of doing this is by becoming a mentor to a less experienced clinician. However, many experienced dental professionals, especially practice owners, can find it challenging to mentor other colleagues. Mentoring, like dentistry, is a skill that takes time and training to develop. In Dentistry, mentorship is when a senior experienced clinician (mentor) provides influence, guidance or direction to a less experienced clinician (mentee). The first step to becoming a dental mentor is to understand there are many types and styles of mentorship. Different styles of mentorship may suit you better depending on your personality, values or temperament. In “How To Find A Dental Mentor”[SB1.1], I shared some useful tools to figure out your personality, as well as your learning and teaching styles, which will help you find a mentee who matches you well.

There are many different roles a mentor can play in a mentee’s professional career. Deciding what type of mentor you want to be will help you choose the best mentee for you. The American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine shares that a mentor has at least seven roles they can fill:

1. Teacher
   As the mentor, you teach the mentee technical skills in how to become efficient in executing a particular procedure, as well as how to develop treatment plans and troubleshoot issues from first principles and evidence-based philosophies. You may also teach from your own experience with what has worked well and how you were able to achieve consistent results with patients.
2. Sponsor
   Your role is to introduce a less experienced mentee to the real world of dentistry and support them expand their mindset and vision towards what is possible for their future dental career.
3. Advisor
   In this role, you’ll serve as an advisor and counsellor for the mentee by being a sounding board, helping them gain perspective on the challenges and obstacles they might face. Drawing on your experience, you can provide clarity and guidance to support confident decision-making.
4. Agent
   If you’re willing to help remove obstacles and be an agent for growth and learning for the mentee, then this is the role you want to take. It’s hands-on but you’ll be taking care not to spoon feed them and stunt their development. This may involve supporting parts of a case or demonstrating troubleshooting approaches when the mentee feels stuck, while still enabling them to achieve a successful outcome independently.
5. Role Model
   In this instance, you act as a role model by simply providing a good example of a skilled, caring and competent clinician allowing the mentee to emulate you in the future.
6. Coach
   A good coach motivates their players to win. In this instance, a mentor acts as a coach for the mentee by giving them the necessary push and encouragement towards action. Through clear expectations and support, the mentor helps the mentee work towards a high standard, enabling them to reach their full potential as a clinician and deliver excellent patient care.
7. Confidante
   This is one of the most important roles a mentor can take for a mentee by being the safe space for them to share and discuss what’s on their mind. In this role, you build trust and rapport between both the mentor and mentee, becoming a large factor in helping build emotional resilience and maintain good mental health during their transition to becoming a confident dentist.

When it comes to mentoring a prospective mentee, you can approach it in a number of ways:

One-on-One

Where the mentee may be working in the same dental practice. This is a more personal way of passing experience onto a less experienced clinician.

Distance Mentoring

Where the mentee may be practicing in a different location, but you meet at a common point to guide and help them along their journey. This can either be in-person or virtually using video conferencing technology.

Group Mentoring

Where you provide mentorship to a group of mentees who may all have a common interest in a specific area of dentistry, or you would like to add value to more than one person.

For practice owners who are looking to hire a new graduate dentist in their practice, one of the most important considerations is how to mentor and guide them if you have never done so before. One way of doing this is to create a structured, formalised mentorship programme where you define times in your calendar for the mentee to either shadow you, provide case feedback and discussions or supply in-house CPD to upskill them.

It’s also common for mentors and mentees to attend conferences, symposiums or courses together because they both learn from the experience. Your professional association may have a mentorship programme whereby you will be matched with a mentee and follow a predesigned structured programme. This may be a great place to also generate ideas of how you might structure your own mentorship programme for your dental practice and your less-experienced associate clinicians.

Once you have found a mentee to pass on your experience and wisdom to, it’s important to establish some key qualities and mentoring behaviours so that you can also have a fulfilling, enriching experience through sharing your knowledge.

Active Listening & Empathy

Always prioritise understanding the mentee’s situation before offering advice. Active listening is crucial, especially in high-stress or high-pressure situations–. Think about how you felt the first time you walked into a clinic and what helped you become the dentist you are today.

Honest & Constructive Feedback

Whether asked or not, provide specific, actionable insights rather than vague praise when offering feedback. Honest and constructive feedback is a lot more helpful than a simple platitude. Ask yourself: What did they do well? What could they have done better?

Reliability & Availability

Be available and accountable to your mentee so they can count on you in times of need. If you’ve given your mentee certain days or hours to contact you, it’s making sure that you show up or are always available during those times.

Authenticity

Make sure that you’re genuine to your mentee. Being genuine helps you build a foundation of trust, and is what allows for professional growth outside of technical teaching.

Set Clear Expectations

Define goals and boundaries at the start of the mentoring relationship so that you both know what to expect out of each other. This includes meeting times, whether clinical support will be provided, what type of mentor you want to be and what type of mentoring your mentee requires. Sometimes you may find that the match isn’t right, for example the mentee may need a more hands on approach and you simply don’t have the time. This isn’t anyones fault. Be honest early so that you can both find a better fit.

Foster Independence

You should always be helping your mentee develop their own solutions rather than just giving answers. This will empower your mentee to become self-reliant and build their confidence to make them a better clinician in the future. After all, the goal of mentorship is to help your mentee maintain long-term autonomy.

Provide Encouragement

Support your mentee through challenges and view any of the mistakes they make as learning opportunities instead of issues that require correction. Allowing your mentee to learn from mistakes, rather than simply shielding them, will help them in their future professional career.

Share Knowledge & Network

If you want to foster a supportive community, then sharing your expertise and helping your mentees connect with new opportunities in crucial – especially in an industry as isolated as dentistry. We all know the risk of burnout as dental professionals, so helping them build their professional community is essential and has the additional benefit of accelerating their development.

Model Professionalism

By living up to the advice you give, you set a clear example and help shape the mentee’s ethical and professional standards as a future clinician. How do you respond to patients when they have questions? How do you treat other clinic staff day-to-day? Are you engaged as a clinician or do you keep to yourself?

Dr Kaejenn Tchia is a dentist based in the Northern Territory. You can follow his work at the Limitless Dentist on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

• Read our blog on essential tips to Working as a New Graduate.
• Understand your Professional Indemnity Insurance cover as dental professional here.
• Knowing what to do when you receive a notification from Ahpra can transform a stressful situation into an opportunity for growth. Read our blog on the notification process here.

• https://www.atsjournals.org/doi/10.1164/rccm.2405004
• https://hr.ucdavis.edu/departments/learning-dev/toolkits/mentoring/types