Current mentorship practices in the training of the next generation of clinical microbiology and infectious disease specialists: an international cross-sectional survey.

The purpose of this study was to describe the current practice of mentorship in clinical microbiology (CM) and infectious diseases (ID) training, to identify possible areas for improvement and to assess the factors that are associated with satisfactory mentorship. An international cross-sectional survey containing 35 questions was answered by 317 trainees or specialists who recently completed clinical training. Overall, 179/317 (56%) trainees were satisfied with their mentors, ranging from 7/9 (78%) in non-European countries, 39/53 (74%) in Northern Europe, 13/22 (59%) in Eastern Europe, 61/110 (56%) in Western Europe, 37/76 (49%) in South-Western Europe to 22/47 (47%) in South-Eastern Europe. However, only 115/317 (36%) respondents stated that they were assigned an official mentor during their training. In multivariable logistic regression analysis, the satisfaction of trainees was significantly associated with having a mentor who was a career model (OR 6.4, 95%CI 3.5-11.7), gave constructive feedback on work performance (OR 3.3, 95%CI 1.8-6.2), and knew the family structure of the mentee (OR 5.5, 95%CI 3.0-10.1). If trainees felt overburdened, 70/317 (22%) felt that they could not talk to their mentors. Moreover, 67/317 (21%) stated that they could not talk to their mentor when unfairly treated and 59/317 (19%) felt uncertain. Training boards and authorities responsible for developing and monitoring CM&ID training programmes should invest in the development of high-quality mentorship programmes for trainees in order to contribute to the careers of the next generation of professionals.

How are trainees in clinical microbiology and infectious diseases supervised in Europe? An international cross-sectional questionnaire survey by the Trainee Association of ESCMID.

The purpose of this study was to map the supervision of European trainees in clinical microbiology and infectious diseases during their training. An international cross-sectional questionnaire survey of 38 questions was distributed among trainees and recently graduated medical specialists from European countries. Descriptive analyses were performed on both the total group of respondents and regionally. In total, 393 respondents from 37 different countries were included. The median of overall satisfaction with the supervisor was 4 (interquartile range 3-4) on a Likert scale (range 1, not satisfied at all-5, completely satisfied). Overall, merely 34% of respondents received constructive feedback from their supervisor on a regularly basis, 36% could evaluate their own supervisor, and just 63% were evaluated on their skills using a written plan. Fifty-two percent did not receive the opportunity to do a part of the specialty training abroad and 63% received support from their supervisors to be involved in research projects or publishing papers. A considerable proportion of trainees, mainly in Southern and Eastern European regions, felt that they did not receive sufficient supervision. This information may be useful in the pursuit of harmonizing the quality of training, achieving a common curriculum, and identifying robust and objective criteria to coach and evaluate trainees in a proper way.