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Background Mentoring’s pivotal role in nurturing professional identity formation (PIF) owes much to its combined use with supervision, coaching, tutoring, instruction, and teaching. However the effects of this combination called the ‘mentoring umbrella’ remains poorly understood. This systematic scoping review thus aims to map current understanding. Methods A Systematic Evidence-Based Approach guided systematic scoping review seeks to map current understanding of the ‘mentoring umbrella’ and its effects on PIF on medical students and physicians in training. It is hoped that insights provided will guide structuring, support and oversight of the ‘mentoring umbrella’ in nurturing PIF. Articles published between 2000 and 2021 in PubMed, Scopus, ERIC and the Cochrane databases were scrutinised. The included articles were concurrently summarised and tabulated and concurrently analysed using content and thematic analysis and tabulated. The themes and categories identified were compared with the summaries of the included articles to create accountable and reproducible domains that guide the discussion. Results A total of 12201 abstracts were reviewed, 657 full text articles evaluated, and 207 articles included. The three domains identified were definitions; impact on PIF; and enablers and barriers. The mentoring umbrella shapes PIF in 3 stages and builds a cognitive base of essential knowledge, skills and professional attitudes. The cognitive base informs thinking, conduct and opinions in early supervised clinical exposure in Communities of practice (COP). The COPs’ individualised approach to the inculcation of desired professional characteristics, goals, values, principles and beliefs reshapes the individual’s identity whilst the socialisation process sees to their integration into current identities. Conclusion The mentoring umbrella’s provides personalised longitudinal support in the COP and socialisation process. Understanding it is key to addressing difficulties faced and ensuring holistic and timely support.

Background Mentoring plays a pivotal yet poorly understood role in shaping a physician’s professional identity formation (PIF) or how they see, feel and act as professionals. New theories posit that mentoring nurtures PIF by functioning as a community of practice through its structured approach and its support of a socialisation process made possible by its assessment-directed personalized support. To test this theory and reshape the design, employ and support of mentoring programs, we evaluate peer-mentor experiences within the Palliative Medicine Initiative’s structured research mentoring program. Methods Semi-structured interviews with peer mentors under the Palliative Medicine Initiative (PMI) at National Cancer Centre Singapore were conducted and triangulated against mentoring diaries to capture longitudinal data of their PMI experiences. The Systematic Evidence-Based Approach (SEBA) was adopted to enhance the trustworthiness of the data. SEBA employed concurrent content and thematic analysis of the data to ensure a comprehensive review. The Jigsaw Perspective merged complementary themes and categories identified to create themes/categories. The themes/categories were compared with prevailing studies on mentoring in the Funnelling Process to reaffirm their accuracy. Results Twelve peer-mentors participated in the interviews and eight peer-mentors completed the mentoring diaries. The domains identified were community of practice and identity work. Conclusions The PMI’s structured mentoring program functions as a community of practice supporting the socialisation process which shapes the peer-mentor’s belief system. Guided by a structured mentoring approach, stage-based assessments, and longitudinal mentoring and peer support, peer-mentors enhance their detection and evaluation of threats to their regnant belief system and adapt their self-concepts of identity and personhood to suit their context. These insights will help structure and support mentoring programs as they nurture PIF beyond Palliative Medicine.

Background Medical education has enjoyed mixed fortunes nurturing professional identity formation (PIF), or how medical students think, feel and act as physicians. New data suggests that structured mentoring programs like the Palliative Medicine Initiative (PMI) may offer a means of developing PIF in a consistent manner. To better understand how a well-established structured research mentoring program shapes PIF, a study of the experiences of PMI mentees is proposed. Methodology Acknowledging PIF as a sociocultural construct, a Constructivist approach and Relativist lens were adopted for this study. In the absence of an effective tool, the Ring Theory of Personhood (RToP) and Krishna-Pisupati Model (KPM) model were used to direct this dual Systematic Evidence-Based Approach (Dual-SEBA) study in designing, employing and analysing semi-structured interviews with PMI mentees and mentoring diaries. These served to capture changes in PIF over the course of the PMI’s mentoring stages. Transcripts of the interviews and mentoring diaries were concurrently analysed using content and thematic analysis. Complementary themes and categories identified from the Split Approach were combined using the Jigsaw Approach and subsequently compared with mentoring diaries in the Funnelling Process. The domains created framed the discussion. Results A total of 12 mentee interviews and 17 mentoring diaries were analysed, revealing two domains—PMI as a Community of Practice (CoP) and Identity Formation. The domains confirmed the centrality of a structured CoP capable of facilitating longitudinal mentoring support and supporting the Socialisation Process along the mentoring trajectory whilst cultivating personalised and enduring mentoring relationships. Conclusion The provision of a consistent mentoring approach and personalised, longitudinal mentoring support guided along the mentoring trajectory by structured mentoring assessments lay the foundations for more effective mentoring programs. The onus must now be on developing assessment tools, such as a KPM-based tool, to guide support and oversight of mentoring relationships.