Outcomes of a nationwide mentoring program for physician assistant educators.

PURPOSE: Physician assistant (PA) program faculty recruited from clinical practice encounter many barriers to success in academia, contributing to high attrition rates. METHODS: In response, the PAEA Research Institute developed a nationwide mentoring program for junior PA educators in 2010-2011, focused on scholarship. The program was not well-utilized; more than half of the 33 early-career faculty originally enrolled in the program failed to contact their volunteer mentors despite signing formal agreements. RESULTS: Neither confidence levels nor actual scholarly productivity differed significantly between the initially matched and wait-list groups. Time devoted to scholarship at the midpoint and end of the program correlated significantly with number of papers produced during the mentorship year (Pearson 0.830 and 0.823, respectively, P < .0001). A separate qualitative follow-up survey identified lack of time, communication issues, and lack of structured expectations for scholarly output as significant barriers. CONCLUSION: These results suggest lack of time may interfere with mentoring relationships and scholarly success for early-career PA educators.