MENTORSHIP IN MEDICAL EDUCATION: A UKRAINIAN EXPERIENCE

Abstract

The article is dedicated to mentorship in Ukrainian medical education, viewing it as a historically rooted but insufficiently regulated part of medical training. The literature review shows significant role of medical mentorship in the world, within the professional and personal growth of the mentees. However, the article states that in Ukraine mentorship in medicine performs more formal roles than in world medical environment. The authors describe mentorship traditionally embedded in departmental apprenticeship and clinical learning, implemented today mainly as a voluntary, non-standardised practice rather than a curriculum duty. The authors analyse how mentoring in Ukraine is most often realised in clinical settings and through peer or near-peer support, frequently in hybrid formats, and largely dependent on local team rules and informal agreements. The basic constraints of medical mentorship lie in its “secondary” role related to clinical teaching, poor apprehension of mentor’s roles, confusing teaching with mentoring by the mentors, and resulting under- or over-mentoring. The authors represent micro-mentoring, brief, regular, goal-oriented contacts, as the most feasible and practically effective mentoring style in contemporary Ukrainian conditions, especially under workload constraints and disrupted learning trajectories. The authors suggest a structured medical MENTOR model as an institutional framework that can be applied across medical educational institutions: mapping roles and risks, establishing expectations, narrowing goals, teaching feedback, organising regular contacts, and reinforcing professionalism. The authors conclude that Ukrainian medical education requires a clear national mentorship model supported by unified standards and measurable control criteria to ensure equity of access, consistency of mentoring quality, and, ultimately, improved outcomes of medical training.