The field of psychiatry research risks a “lost generation” due to the difficulties of COVID, warn the authors of an editorial published in The Lancet. The burden of the pandemic has strained the critical aspect of the mentor-mentee relationship and the difficult period between the end of training and beginning research as an independent professional.
The authors, Erika E Forbes and David J Kupfer, are directors of the US-based Career Development Institute for Psychiatry, which provides teaching and mentoring programme for those embarking on a career into academic psychiatry, note that the pandemic has had a significant impact on this stage of development. The same challenges noted by the authors no doubt apply to the field of clinical psychology as well, which is also dependent on mentoring.
Both mentors and mentees are exhausted from health-related uncertainty, from Zoom meetings, and struggling to effectively collaborate, they wrote.
They note that starting a career as a scientist is a challenge even in the most stable times, but is now particularly gruelling, something they have recently borne witness to.
“At our April 2022 annual workshop, our fellows were dispirited, telling us that they feel neglected, undermined, and in some cases emotionally abused by the mentors at their home institutions. Many cannot envision a way forward.”
Though the authors are optimistic about adapting to COVID, with the limited of virtual settings and the new acknowledgement of how daily struggles impact work, they cannot deny that cannot deny that “psychiatry research is in a mentoring crisis.”
Mentoring is different in the COVID era, they stress. “If we accept that research will not go back to the pre-pandemic ways, adapt our behaviour to current realities, and enhance our commitment to supporting and guiding others, early-career scientists will again be able to thrive,” the authors conclude.
