Benefits of a Physical Therapy Mentor

A mentor is someone who allows you to see the hope inside yourself.
~Oprah Winfrey

Sports physical therapists often feel like they have to do everything alone . . . understand diagnoses, differentiate between different positions and sports, proper progression, new surgical techniques. And those are just some of the clinical responsibilities. Now, couple those tasks with documentation, productivity, education. It’s a lot.

Having a mentor can make it feel like someone has your back.

But beyond those softer skills, there are other real, tangible benefits to working with a mentor.

• In a five year study of 1,000 employees, 25% of those who enrolled in a mentoring program received a salary change, compared to only 5% for those who didn’t.
• “Novice participants in their early career were more likely to identify entry-level education and mentors as most influential in developing their professional core values.”
• “Those who receive mentorship are more likely to see improved academic, social and economic prospects. EVERY mentorship matters.”
• Research in the Journal of Applied Psychology concluded that people with mentors are also more likely to receive promotions.
• ” . . . mentoring undergraduate students can have a profound impact on their career trajectories.”
• Another study from the US Army found that mentorship was able to reduce the likelihood of turnover by 38%.
• “. . . several participants described the importance of positive mentors and role models during their careers who they wanted to emulate. A novice clinician described a clinical instructor:
  • One of my instructors was a great mentor. I still look up to him and keep in touch with him. My mentor really worked on getting my clinical skills good…. You need to, as a professional, take it to the next level. I look at it like a combination, that it needs to be both the clinical and the professional…. You need to develop in all these areas.”
  • McGinnis et al. 2016

It is possible to practice successfully without working with a mentor, but it requires more work and longer time. A mentor helps speed up the process by guiding a mentee through the sports physical therapy landscape.