Evaluation of mentorship experience of doctors undergoing the postgraduate residency training programme in Nigeria.

Background: Mentorship or mentoring is 'the process whereby an experienced, highly regarded, empathic person (the mentor), guides another individual (the mentee) in the development and reexamination of their own ideas, learning and personal and professional development.Aim: This study aims at ascertaining Resident doctors' experiences of mentorship in their respective institutions and what they recommend as ways of bridging the gap between them (the mentees), and their trainers (mentors).Methods: The study was a cross-sectional descriptive study using a 19-item self-administered questionnaire. The study population consisted of all Resident Doctors attending the mandatory update courses of the Postgraduate Colleges. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS version 20.Results: Four hundred and thirty-seven doctors fully completed the questionnaires. There were 262 and 175 males and females respectively, giving a male to female ratio of 1.5 to 1. One hundred and eleven (25.4%) respondents claimed that their institutions had a structured mentorship program.Conclusion: Although the understanding of the concept of mentorship is widespread among resident doctors, there is a dearth of mentoring experiences among resident doctors in Nigeria due to the lack of formal mentoring schemes. The integration of formal mentoring programmes into the postgraduate medical curriculum may increase its prevalence. Keywords: mentorship, resident doctors, postgraduate, mentor, mentee