entoring can play a pivotal role in promoting interest in family medicine as a career choice for new graduates. The performance of not only an individual but rather the whole organisation is related to how its employees or associates work. Healthcare systems are no different. Apart from staying organised, being focused and having good communication skills, presence of good mentors can positively affect the overall environment of an organisation. Mentoring in healthcare can promote learning and improve patient care.

Mentoring is one way to help an individual progress in their professional career or personal development. Mentoring is defined as sharing of knowledge, skills and experiences to guide and support another person. It’s the transfer of information from experienced to beginner in the same field. Mentoring can be formal or informal; it can be online or offline; short term or long term; and expectations from both mentor and the mentored can vary. Mentoring in healthcare can provide a strong base for a trainee and define their career path. Developing strong mentoring relationships can have a lasting impact on an institution’s image.

Bearing in mind the role and responsibilities of a primary care physician and the current state of primary care facilities and their services in the South Asian region, it is crucial to build up the capacity of such clinicians. Good mentors are needed to make primary care more attractive or appealing. Such mentors help shape not only a trainee’s career. The mentor’s experience and guidance can help trainees focus and work on the gaps in their training. When community engagement and empowerment are the goals, a primary care physician has to aim to develop empathy and take responsibility for their own actions. Mentorship is a form of accompaniment, it helps transform mentees’ behaviours which in turn promotes equity. Equity is linked to the provision of quality services and improved outcomes.

As primary care physicians working in testing situations in lower-middle-income countries like Pakistan; unmet needs of mental health, non-communicable diseases and maternal and child health, can be stressful. Besides, dealing with a number of issues like antimicrobial resistance, multi-drug resistance in infections especially TB and HIV, re-use and misuse of injections/ needles, and the lack of a robust primary care system further exacerbates health problems. Having mentoring in family medicine/ primary care physicians is much needed.

The mentored physicians’ understanding of the country’s healthcare system and the insight into the fundamentals of primary care they gain can help them identify and develop skills and competencies needed to become safe, competent and independently practicing primary care physicians.

For trainees, learning in a clinical environment during clinical rotations is a new experience, particularly for those who are being exposed to it after a gap. Having a good mentor-mentee relationship can help address a number of issues. Mentee’s understanding of the country’s healthcare system and the insight gained into the fundamentals of primary care can help them identify and develop skills and competencies needed to become safe, competent and independently practicing primary care physicians. This, in turn, will not only have an impact on trainee’s awareness but will also lead to improvement of patient care and help reduce disease burden.

Mentoring in a limited-resource setting can be demanding. One of the ways to deal with this is introducing mentoring programmes to empower mentors. Bringing about a change in a fragmented healthcare system and attempting to introduce reforms requires the presence of mentors with leadership skills, communication skills and technical skills. Primary care physicians work with multi-disciplinary teams. Multidisciplinary mentoring can lead to the development of core primary care skills.

Mentorship is not only needed in the clinical domain. It is also needed in primary care research. New knowledge is produced through research. This needs further advancing simultaneously with developing research skills in junior doctors. Mentorship plays an important role in shaping both academic and research environments and has a key role in a mentee’s overall professional development. Practical mentoring in primary care helps promote learning and improve work performance which results in improved communication in multidisciplinary teams

Dr Hina Jawaid is an associate professor in family medicine at Health Services Academy, Islamabad.

Dr Sobia Jawaid is a family physician at Evercare Hospital, Lahore.