Mentorship
The guidance is provided by a mentor, especially an experienced person in a company or educational institution.
The importance of mentorships in medical education and neurosurgery is highly attributed to the support and encouragement of the advances and learning opportunities for medical students and junior neurosurgeons. Planning a mentorship program according to the target audience offers to satisfy different interests and enhance education. One of the main issues with most of the already implemented programs is the sustainability and inability to maintain continuous cycles of mentorship, which have a negative impact and have led to an interrupted pattern of learning which eventually leads to a decline in the engagement of participants and loss of interest. This problem is most pronounced in war-torn countries, with Iraq as an example, where external circumstances lead to an arrest in the educational process and a depletion of the resources useful for such programs and training courses. This paper aims to address the main pathways essential in planning a sustainable mentorship program in a war-torn country by highlighting our experience in maintaining an ongoing mentorship with nine consecutive courses over the last 6 years in Iraq 1).
Excellence in surgical work should be measured comprehensively and over long follow-up periods using tools such as functional outcomes and quality of life instruments besides morbidity and mortality. For excellence in neurosurgical research, one can use the help of indices such as the h index and i10-index. No single measure, whether for surgical excellence or excellence in research, however, incorporates a measure of qualities such as empathy, integrity and mentorship. These intangible qualities should be an integral part of the assessment of a neurosurgeon and his/her work. Cushing's attributes of meticulous record-keeping, attention to detail, and maximal utilization of opportunities should guide us in our pursuit of excellence. In recent years, it has been suggested that excellence is not the result of innate talent but can be aspired to by anyone willing to adopt a work ethic that involves several hours of “deliberate practice,” feedback, and passion. Neurosurgeons should continue to pursue the legacy of Cushing, especially in present times when medical professionals are frequently depicted as being driven more by avarice than by Hippocratic principles 2).