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A Letter From Mary Fillmore to Scientific and Medical Professionals
"Man's most human characteristic is not his
ability to learn, which he shares with many other species,
but his ability to teach and store what others have
developed and taught him."
- Margaret Mead, cultural anthropologist
Having a mentor can help you in many ways:
Technically, a mentor can help you to refine
your approaches and can offer an experienced perspective.
You can discuss problems and options for possible approaches
with him or her. While some mentors may be in supervisory
roles, it often is helpful to find a mentor outside
of your immediate working environment. This allows your
mentor to be more objective, and there is less risk
in speaking frankly with him or her about people or
any concerns that may arise.
Career-wise, mentors can discern your strengths
and skills and help you to develop them. Discovering
what your particular gifts are and cultivating them
is especially important once you have established a
career track. Most people tend to start in a particular
track and stay there, but a mentor can help you to shift
out of “everyday gear” and reflect on the
overall status of your life and career. Are you really
doing what you are best at? Is it what matters most
to you? Do you have goals that reflect your best potential
and a plan to reach toward them? A mentor helps you
to be accountable to your dreams, reminding you of the
promises you have made to yourself. Are you one of the
many women who is so caught up your the day-to-day job
that you have forgotten about your overall career? A
mentor’s job is to remind you of your overriding
career goals.
Politically, mentors are essential for people
to broaden their networks and in coaching them through
the triumphs and treacheries of university, hospital,
or corporate bureaucracies. A mentor can introduce you
to people whom you might not meet otherwise, or who
would see you as just another random Ph.D. or M.D. without
the mentor’s “Seal of Approval.” Whether
at a professional conference or seminar, an informal
gathering, a Website, or a carefully assembled dinner
for an old colleague, your mentor can make the difference
between your having an isolated career and being connected
globally.
You may turn out to be one of the fortunate few people
who can reap all these benefits from one or two mentors
in the course of your career. It is far more typical
to gather bits of mentoring from many, many people.
One might be a technical genius, another a “big
picture” university politician, another a woman
who is struggling with the same issues that you are.
Each can help in his or her own way, but you have to
take responsibility yourself for finding and integrating
what each person can offer you. |
