Insights from a survey of mentorship experiences

What do mentees want and need from their mentors, and are they getting it? How do factors such as gender identity and internationalism affect the quality of mentor/mentee interactions? Results from a survey of more than 2000 mentees (mostly postdocs and graduate students) are reported, along with a thorough analysis and concrete recommendations. The typical situation in most laboratories that biologists train in involves a single mentor (the principal investigator, PI) as the nearly sole point of support for graduate students and postdocs. Sadly, most PIs have had minimal training in effective mentorship, as illustrated by the results of this survey. In addition to reporting a great deal of data, this article also provides an excellent set of recommendations to improve the mentoring relationship, and to avoid common pitfalls. (Summary by Mary Williams @PlantTeaching) bioRxiv https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.05.539640v1