Grant: Operating Grant - Priority Announcement: Knowledge Translation

Numerous studies have shown a need to improve the quality of health care world wide. One way to do this is to help physician and nurse researchers undertake knowledge translation (KT). KT refers to different methods for ensuring that other health professionals are aware of, and use research findings about beneficial new health care procedures and services in the routine care of patients. Since research shows that adults learn best from peers rather than the more typical lectures, mentoring could be used to help physician and nurse researchers develop KT skills. Mentoring is a method for training adults that is primarily used in large corporations to support learning among new employees. In a mentoring relationship, a more experienced mentor provides ongoing advice to the novice mentee. We propose that researchers with expertise in KT could mentor physician and nurse researchers about KT methods, a process that has not been previously tested. To understand whether and how mentorship can be used to develop KT skill among physician and nurse researchers, we will first review published corporate research to learn about the features of successful mentoring programs. We will then interview physician and nurse researchers at the University of Toronto to share this information with them, and ask for their views on how to develop a KT mentoring program. In future research studies we will use their advice to plan and implement a KT mentoring program, and evaluate its success through further interviews with those involved to assess whether and how learning about KT took place.