This dovetails so well with the current push in CME for team-based training: reverse mentoring, where a person higher in the hierarchy is taken under the wing of someone further down the ladder. The example in the article is at a pharmaceutical company:

Jan Shioji is one of them. As director of pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca’s Dallas regional offices, she started a reverse mentorship program early this year. She did it because she spends most of her days in the office and in meetings, and she admits that she was out of touch with the people who worked for her, people who were representing the company in public.



Shioji and the other directors had been discussing how to attract, retain and develop talent. What it all came down to was if “we want to continue to build leadership, we need to reach out to folks in the field,” she said.

I could also envision this working with doctors being mentored by nurses, orderlies, and others who they probably don t look to for advice very often. I have a feeling that the docs would probably hate it, but it could be a great boon for patient care.

To receive a weekly update, e-mail Sue.