{"id":7049,"date":"2025-05-22T09:00:19","date_gmt":"2025-05-22T08:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medicine.st-andrews.ac.uk\/news\/?p=7049"},"modified":"2025-06-09T16:08:01","modified_gmt":"2025-06-09T15:08:01","slug":"new-paper-highlights-the-impact-of-national-mentoring-scheme-for-minority-women-in-academic-medicine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medicine.st-andrews.ac.uk\/news\/new-paper-highlights-the-impact-of-national-mentoring-scheme-for-minority-women-in-academic-medicine\/","title":{"rendered":"New paper highlights the impact of national mentoring scheme for minority women in academic medicine"},"content":{"rendered":"

The pioneering AIMMS Mentoring initiative<\/a>, co-founded by the University of St Andrews, has been evaluated through a peer-reviewed study<\/a> published in PLOS One<\/em>. The programme, led by the University of Southampton in collaboration with the Universities of St Andrews, Cardiff, Exeter, Leicester, Swansea, Leeds, and Birmingham; Hull York Medical School; and the Academy of Medical Sciences, was created to tackle career progression inequalities for minority women in academic medicine and health sciences. The findings highlight the crucial role of mentorship and tailored career support in breaking down barriers and promoting equal opportunities in the field.<\/p>\n

AIMMS Mentoring was developed by the founding members and launched in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The scheme has expanded from nine to thirteen UK medical schools and, as of 2024, is now available to all UK medical schools through its adoption by the Medical Schools Council<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Co-authored by AIMMS Mentoring Founding Committee Member and Senior Lecturer Dr Jane Ill\u00e9s<\/a>* and Director of Inclusion and Senior Lecturer Dr John Winpenny<\/a> with colleagues from partner institutions, the study demonstrates AIMMS Mentoring\u2019s effectiveness in supporting career progression, fostering mentorship relationships, and creating a more inclusive academic environment.<\/p>\n

Founding Chair Professor Nisreen Alwan said: \u201cWe are delighted that the AIMMS Mentoring evaluation revealed that both participating mentors and mentees reported positive personal and professional development. It is so important to support under-represented groups in academic medicine and health sciences, as diversity in leadership is likely to reflect in wider societal benefits particularly in relation to health inequalities.\u201d<\/p>\n

“It was wonderful to bring the School into this project from the early stages of Prof. Alwan\u2019s idea, and work alongside dedicated colleagues from across the UK, on developing and evaluating AIMMS,\u201d added Dr Ill\u00e9s. \u201cWe can now clearly evidence the positive impact of cross-institutional, targeted mentoring in supporting this under-represented group \u2014 helping individuals unlock their potential and bringing the sector a step closer to a truly equitable academic culture where everyone feels they belong.”<\/p>\n

Dr Winpenny thanked the School of Medicine for its early support of the scheme: \u201cWe are proud to be a founding member of AIMMS Mentoring and are grateful to the School of Medicine for initially contributing to the funding of this initiative. We would encourage any colleagues who would be interested in being a mentor or mentee to contact either myself or Dr Ill\u00e9s or follow the link to the MSC webpage below.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking ahead, AIMMS Mentoring plans to extend its support to postgraduate students and additional intersectional groups.<\/p>\n

Get Involved<\/strong><\/p>\n

The AIMMS Mentoring initiative is actively seeking both mentors and mentees. If you\u2019d like to take part, visit Academic Intersectionality Mentoring in Medical Schools (AIMMS) | Medical Schools Council<\/a> \u00a0for more details.<\/p>\n

*Note:<\/strong> Dr Jane Ill\u00e9s\u2019 roles in the study (\u2018Conceptualisation\u2019 and \u2018Writing \u2013 Reviewing & Editing\u2019) were mistakenly excluded from the online version of the article on the PLOS One <\/i>website. Her name was also incorrectly listed as \u2018Jane P. Ill\u00e9s\u2019 in the Author Contributions section on pages 12-13 of the downloadable version. These errors are in the process of being corrected by the publisher.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The pioneering AIMMS Mentoring initiative, co-founded by the University of St Andrews, has been evaluated through a peer-reviewed study published in PLOS One. The programme, led by the University of Southampton in collaboration with the Universities of St Andrews, Cardiff, Exeter, Leicester, Swansea, Leeds, and Birmingham; Hull York Medical School; and the Academy of Medical…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5585,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1280,10],"tags":[27,29,326,339,1281,1403,723],"class_list":["post-7049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inclusion","category-news","tag-academic-intersectionality-mentoring-in-medical-schools","tag-academy-of-medical-sciences","tag-dr-jane-illes","tag-dr-john-winpenny","tag-edi","tag-equ","tag-mentoring"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-11 20:32:53","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicine.st-andrews.ac.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicine.st-andrews.ac.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicine.st-andrews.ac.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.st-andrews.ac.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5585"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.st-andrews.ac.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.st-andrews.ac.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7049\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicine.st-andrews.ac.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.st-andrews.ac.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.st-andrews.ac.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}