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Building Effective Mentoring Relationships During Clinical Ethics Fellowships: Pedagogy, Programs, and People

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Abstract

How should clinical ethicists be trained? Scholars have stated that clinical ethics fellowships create well-trained, competent ethicists. While this appears intuitive, few features of fellowship programs have been publicly discussed, let alone debated. In this paper, we examine how fellowships can foster effective mentoring relationships. These relationships provide the foundation for the fellow’s transition from novice to competent professional. In this essay, we begin by discussing our pedagogical commitments. Next, we describe the structures our program has created to assist our fellows in becoming competent ethicists. We then outline the kinds of knowledge, skills, and professional attributes mentors should possess. Following this, we focus on the knowledge, skills, and professional attributes that fellows develop as they co-create effective mentoring relationships. We will not prescribe a single approach to fellowship training; instead, our perspective will, we hope, become a catalyst for further conversation on training and mentoring clinical ethics fellows.

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  1. We will set aside the debate as to whether these professional traits must also be conceived of as attitudes, behaviors, character traits, dispositions, habits, personal qualities, virtues, or the like. We are committed to the less controversial proposition that the mentor and the fellow must exhibit something like these traits for an effective mentoring relationship.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to Dr. Alison Suen for reviewing versions of this manuscript. Thanks to Dr. Amy McGuire and Professor Courtenay R. Bruce for contributing to the development of the program we discuss. Thanks to our colleagues at Weill Cornell Medical College's Division of Medical Ethics for their collaboration on our fellowship program.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy, Baylor College of Medicine, 1 Baylor Plaza, Houston, TX, 77030, USA

    Trevor M. Bibler, Ryan H. Nelson, Janet Malek & Mary A. Majumder

  2. Institute for Bioethics and Health Humanities, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX, USA

    Bryanna Moore

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  1. Trevor M. Bibler
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  4. Janet Malek
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Correspondence to Trevor M. Bibler.

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Bibler, T.M., Nelson, R.H., Moore, B. et al. Building Effective Mentoring Relationships During Clinical Ethics Fellowships: Pedagogy, Programs, and People. HEC Forum 36, 1–29 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10730-022-09473-z

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