Reflections on the loss of mentors
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Reflections on the loss of mentors Lara Varpio1 Received: 1 October 2019 / Accepted: 5 November 2019 © This is a U.S. government work and not under copyright protection in the U.S.; foreign copyright protection may apply 2019
Abstract There is a special category of mentor: the person who supports you as much as they support your career. They offer a unique relationship that is rich and powerful. Researchers have tried to better understand this relationship and the other varieties of mentoring relationships. But there is a significant gap in that research: we don’t talk about the experience of the sudden loss of a mentor. Sometimes mentoring relationships end—especially if the mentoring was in support of specific goals, learning objectives, or when the relationship simply no longer fits the needs of the mentor or the mentee. But sometimes disease, tragic accidents, or other powers beyond our control intervene; suddenly, relationships with important mentors are simply gone. How do we navigate these losses? In this piece, I reflect on the most powerful mentorship relationships, on the loss thereof, and on the challenges of mourning lost mentors. It celebrates mentors who invest in others, who put we ahead of me. This elegy is for Dr. Joanna Bates and Dr. Meridith Marks—two women who embodied the highest qualities of mentorship. Keywords Mentorship · Loss · Elegy As of late, I’ve had cause to think about the concept of mentorship. We know that there are different kinds of mentors. Some support our learning curves as we delve into new research AHSE is a journal where we consider advances in health professional education as well as advances in how we conceptualize and practice as education-focused scientists and scholars. This includes considering (with more than a nod to Bourdieu) our field of health professional education and its rules and norms (doxa), which of necessity intersects with the habitus of individual scholars (their identity, perceptions, thoughts, and beliefs). Out of this rises our praxis, how we think and act as scholars, which forms at the intersections between the doxa of one’s field and one’s individual habitus. A key part of developing one’s praxis as a scholar is to pursue what Bourdieu called ‘reflexive reflexivity’, the habitual consideration of how we act and think as scholars. While this can include ontological and epistemological issues, it also needs to consider our individual and shared humanity and how we live and work within our scholarly communities. It is in this frame that the following reflexive essay is presented—Rachel Ellaway, September 2019. * Lara Varpio [email protected] 1
Department of Medicine, Graduate Programs in Health Professions Education, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, 4301 Jones Bridge Road, Bldg 53 Suite123, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA
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topics or methods. Some share their experiences enabling us to be better leaders. Some simply help us be better at our jobs than we are today. But, sometimes, if you are ve
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