On Spentorship
Author: Bethany Samuelson Bannow, MD
Keywords: sponsorship, mentorship, gender bias
“Spentorship” is a fabulously descriptive term coined by Dr. Julie Silver to capture the concept that trainees, junior faculty and even mid-career folks need not only mentorship but also sponsorship. In her fantastic discussions of the subject (at the Harvard Women’s Leadership Summit), she highlights the fact that female-identifying individuals, in particular, are “over-mentored but under-sponsored.”
This concept recently became more salient to me during a discussion with a friend in a different specialty about a trainee. This trainee began a working relationship with their primary mentor, who had a reputation as a very successful one, early in their training program and had been relatively productive with them. However, when the time came to discuss next steps in their career this trainee found themselves struggling to get the advice and input they needed. Due to feeling hesitant to approach their mentor about anything other than their shared projects, the mentee was actively seeking advice from other faculty.
This situation got my friend and I talking about an important question: what does mentorship mean? Is mentorship really enough or should we, in medicine, be shifting our expectations to one of “spentorship,” embodying both mentorship and sponsorship, if we truly want to see trainees and junior faculty succeed?
Mentorship in and of itself is already an unfortunately vague term and varies enormously between institutions and individuals. Sponsorship, while a newer concept in medicine, is somewhat better defined. The technical definition of a sponsor is “one who assumes responsibility for some other person or thing.” In medicine, this effectively means “vouching” for, or expending networking or interpersonal capital on behalf of someone junior. This can look like nominations for awards or promotions, recommendation for a role or responsibility that will result in career growth, or leveraging a network for additional support/resources.
To be clear I am not advocating that every mentor need be a sponsor or a “spentor.” There is both room and need for other kinds of mentorship, including project-specific mentorship, mentorship from those with shared experiences/identities (particularly true for those in minoritized groups, such as women of color, disabled persons and the LGBTQ+ community) and short-term, defined mentorship through a society or training program. There is also room for those who may be primarily a sponsor and do less in terms of mentorship. However, most of us have one person we identify as our “primary” or global mentor, while seeking additional specific advice and input from others and this is the role I wish to address.
In medicine we talk a great deal about the importance of mentorship, having a mentor, being a mentor, helping students, trainees and junior faculty find a mentor. Institutions and societies give mentorship awards to recognize those who, hopefully, excel at the art. Nonetheless, it is virtually impossible to find an agreed upon definition of good mentorship.
As scientists and physicians, we have a natural tendency to seek out objective criteria. In practice this often means identifying those mentors with the traditional trappings of academic success, such as long lists of publications with mentees as first or middle authors. In this author’s opinion, while important, publications are actually the lowest bar of mentorship. The next metric, which is perhaps slightly more comprehensive, is that of “success” in the mentee, meaning acceptance into a good/prestigious position, whether that be residency, fellowship or faculty role, or career productivity, such as receiving independent research funding. While this is typically a sign of more investment from a mentor, it may still be a better marker of the mentee’s own persistence and skill. In the worst case it could represent a mentee feeling forced down a pathway for which they may have skill but little passion.
Truly good mentorship, or spentorship, requires supporting and guiding a mentee down the best path for them. Sometimes this will lead to publications and accolades that reflect back on the mentor, but not always. It may involve facilitating mentorship relationships between a mentee and a different mentor when it becomes apparent that the mentee’s interest diverges from the mentor’s area of expertise. It may mean supporting a mentee in their need for work-life balance, even if this means a role outside of academics or a reduction in workload/hours. It may mean advocating for equity, fair treatment or healthy boundaries, even when that involves facing backlash.
In short, spentorship comes down to a relationship between the primary mentor and mentee that extends beyond the project at hand. Like parenting, the goal must not be to produce a “mini-me” that practices and publishes just like the mentor. Nor must it be driven solely by number of publications or presentations. The goal must be for the mentor to use their wisdom, experience and/or network to help the mentee be the best version of themselves, whether that be in the clinic, in the lab or in the classroom (or all three). Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, it requires clear communication and expectations about what roles the “spentor” can and can’t fill and what needs the mentee has that may or may not be addressed within the relationship.
This communication is particularly important as many trainees have little or no idea of what to expect or what they need from a mentor. Sadly, many a career has suffered from circumstances like those of the trainee described above, where a mentee envisions as a primary mentor someone who is actually only willing or able to provide project-specific mentorship and ultimately winds up without crucial guidance along the path.
“Spentorship” may or may not be for you, but moving forward I would exhort all of us to mentor when we can, sponsor when we can and, most importantly, communicate clearly with those we would seek to advise.
About the author: Dr. Bethany Samuelson Bannow (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at OHSU with a research and clinical focus on the care of patients who do, will or could menstruate and who have bleeding or clotting disorders. She is passionate about equal representation for these patients in research and equal representation, opportunities and recognition for female-identifying and otherwise minoritized folks in academics and medicine (Twitter: @bsamuelson_md).
