Assessment of mentor involvement with pharmacy students pursuing post-graduate residency training

PurposeTo assess graduating pharmacy students’ perceptions of mentorship received during pharmacy school when pursuing post-graduate residency training (PGRT).MethodsA survey was emailed to all Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) accredited schools of pharmacy inviting graduating pharmacy students pursuing PGRT to evaluate aspects of mentorship. The 18-item survey instrument contained five sections: satisfaction with mentorship in various areas (e.g., interview preparation and selecting programs for application), importance of mentorship, amount of mentorship desired, mentorship programs, and match process results. Incomplete surveys were excluded from analysis. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize responses while Chi-square and Fisher’s exact tests were used to compare responses from the matched and non-matched groups. Additionally, regression analysis was conducted to evaluate the students’ match results with satisfaction in various areas of mentorship.ResultsComplete surveys were received from 268 students attending 39 schools of pharmacy. Students ranked curriculum vita (CV) preparation and establishing residency rank list as the most and least important mentorship activities, respectively. Compared with non-matched students, matched students found mentorship with CV preparation (p = 0.02) and selecting programs to apply to (p = 0.01) significantly more important. In addition, matched students were more satisfied with mentorship on CV preparation (85% vs. 71%, p = 0.02), interviewing (71% vs. 38%, p < 0.001), residency recruitment at meetings preparation (76% vs. 59%, p = 0.03) and selecting programs to apply to (71% vs. 39%, p < 0.001).ConclusionGraduating pharmacy students pursuing PGRT were most satisfied with CV and residency recruitment at meetings preparation, and along with interview preparation, ranked them as most important.