Episode 130

Hello Reader,

Mentoring in Healthcare with Dr. Ruth Gotian

This week on the podcast I spoke with Ruth Gotian, EdD, MS, chief learning officer at Weill Cornell Medicine, where she built the mentoring academy from scratch. Her new book, Mentoring in Healthcare, written with Dr. Vineet Chopra and Dr. Sanjay Saint, grew out of a gap: Ruth could not find a mentoring book written for healthcare, and most of us still mentor the way we were mentored.

We started with how a mentoring relationship begins. Ruth's view is that "mentor" is a title that has to be earned. "Will you be my mentor?" from someone you barely know sounds like an open-ended obligation. A better ask names a specific challenge, shows how far you have gotten on your own, and requests 20 minutes. For new attendings who doubt they have anything to offer, she pointed out that they have just been through what their mentees are facing, and that part of the job is saying, "This is where my knowledge ends, but I know someone you should talk to."

Then we talked about what keeps the relationship working. Communication is the most common breakdown, so both people should agree up front on how and how often they will be in touch. Ruth recommends a team of mentors rather than one older, wiser figure, including people outside healthcare. The operating room checklist came from aviation. You do not need to convene the whole team; you go to the person best suited to the question.

We also covered what she and her co-authors call mentorship malpractice, when a mentor becomes a "tormentor." It looks like a manuscript left in an inbox for months, a network that is never shared, or your research presented at a national meeting without your name on it. Ruth considers this worse than no mentoring at all, because people who have been burned stop seeking mentors and often repeat the pattern when they mentor others. The book includes scripts for leaving a mentoring relationship.

On mentoring across differences, her advice is to find what you have in common before focusing on how you differ. She described a department leader who took his division chiefs golfing every month and could not understand why everyone who came looked the same. He had not asked who golfed, or who had children or parents to care for on a Friday evening.

For leaders who want to mentor better starting with the next meeting, Ruth suggests sending three topics in advance with a short note on where each one stands. The meeting can then go straight to next steps, and to what mentees often lack most: borrowed confidence to act. She also reminded us that mentoring is not a life sentence. The mentors you need as a resident are not the ones you need in your first leadership role.

We closed on three roles that often get blurred. Mentoring is a long-term relationship with someone experienced in your path. Coaching is inquiry-based, time-limited, and does not require the coach to share your field. Advising is help on a specific project. Most of us need all three.

The mentee drives the relationship, and that includes closing the loop. When a mentor offers three or four options, go back and tell them which one you chose and why you set the others aside. It shows that you thought it through and that their time was well used.

Good mentoring depends less on finding the perfect person and more on clear communication and follow-through from both sides. Those habits can be learned at any career stage.

Here's my question for you this week: what is the last piece of advice a mentor gave you, and did you tell them what you did with it?

​Mentoring in Healthcare is available wherever you buy books, and you can find Ruth's speaking and coaching at ruthgotian.com. She shares tips on LinkedIn almost every day, and the LinkedIn Learning courses linked on her profile are free for 24 hours once you press play. Tell us what you'd like the podcast to take on next at hello@transforminghealthcarecoaching.com.

🎧 Listen to the podcast sneak peek episode below and listen to the full episode on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, Podbean, or Amazon Music.

Stay mindful and keep leading,
Lillian
Founder & CEO

Email me hello@transforminghealthcarecoaching.com for a 1:1 consultation if this is the right fit for you, or signup for the waitlist directly: https://leadership-learning-lab.transforminghealthcarecoaching.com/​

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