• Ying Pin Toh, R Karthik, Chia Chia Teo, Sarasvathy Suppiah, Siew Li Cheung, and Lalit Krishna.
• 1 Assisi Hospice, Singapore.
• Am J Hosp Palliat Care. 2018 Mar 1; 35 (3): 523-531.

BackgroundMentoring by an experienced practitioner enhances professional well-being, promotes resilience, and provides a means of addressing poor job satisfaction and high burnout rates among medical social workers. This is a crucial source of support for social workers working in fields with high risk of compassion fatigue and burnout like palliative care. Implementing such a program, however, is hindered by differences in understanding and application of mentoring practice.AimThis narrative review of mentoring practice in social work seeks to identify key elements and common approaches within successful mentoring programs in social work that could be adapted to guide the design of new mentoring programs in medical social work. Methodology and Data Sources: A literature search of mentoring programs in social work between January 1, 2000, and December 31, 2015, using Pubmed, CINAHL, OVID, ERIC, Scopus, Cochrane and ScienceDirect databases, involving a senior experienced mentor and undergraduate and/or junior postgraduates, was carried out. A total of 1302 abstracts were retrieved, 22 full-text articles were analyzed, and 8 articles were included.ResultsThematic analysis of the included articles revealed 7 themes pertaining to the mentoring process, outcomes and barriers, and the characteristics of mentoring relationships, mentors, mentees, and host organizations.Discussion And ConclusionCommon themes in prevailing mentoring practices help identify key elements for the design of an effective mentoring program in medical social work. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of these findings upon clinical practice in palliative care and on sustaining such a program.

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