One year of the Concordant Mentoring Program

Dr. Olihe Okoro, co-director of community engagement and associate professor, built the foundation for a concordant mentorship program in the College of Pharmacy even before receiving a grant from the McKesson Foundation to fund the initiative. Working with an Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experiences (APPE) student, together they created a network of Black pharmacists across the state of Minnesota and initiated connections with Black student pharmacists. They had two foundational goals: provide Black and African-American pharmacy students with one-on-one mentoring and give them a vessel to build community with each other. The network became a ready resource to pilot the Concordant Mentoring program, which aims to leverage shared identities and lived experiences in pharmacist-student mentoring. 

“We as Black faculty got to connect with the Black students and try to understand what their needs might be,” Okoro said. “On the other hand, we had also been looking at what their experiences are in terms of belonging and professional identity development.”

The pilot launched with an initial kickoff celebration and enabled a year of one-on-one mentoring. Participants could take advantage of events like a residency application workshop for third and fourth year students, large social gatherings, and more community-building opportunities. Okoro emphasized the important role community building plays in students’ professional identity development.

“That’s really more culturally responsive to Black and African American culture … we have a more communal identity. In fact, for some people it's actually even more important than having the one-on-one, because we also mentor collectively,” Okoro said. “In a space where you are the minority by number, you have students who have never known another black pharmacist. Having large group programming for them helps solidify that sense of belonging and ownership in the profession.”

This mentoring network offers students a support system of pharmacists from whom they can draw wisdom and support not just within the college, but within the profession. One member of Okoro’s network is Dr. Lina Hamid, an infectious diseases clinical pharmacy specialist at the University of Minnesota Medical Center who participated in the program as a mentor. The mentors reflected on their time as students as a way to consider what resources they would have found helpful throughout the different stages of pharmacy education. Hamid affirmed the value of students building a network of not just peers, but future pharmacy preceptors as well as colleagues who can speak to many different areas and specialties of pharmacy practice. 

“Understanding that multiple different paths can get you to a certain career is important. It is also helpful to learn how somebody got to where they are, what path they took, what barriers they identified, and how they overcame that,” Hamid said. “At the end of the day, we can't get to where we are without our mentors or guides and people that help us along the way, so I think it's great to make these connections as early as possible instead of going through pharmacy school in isolation.”

Hamid completed her pharmacy education at a school that “didn’t feel like home” to her, and though she identified several informal and formal mentors for herself during her education and training, she said having an organized initiative like the college’s Concordant Mentoring Program would have been extremely helpful during her years as a pharmacy student. 

“People come from different backgrounds, viewpoints and have different interests, but at the core of it, it's good to have that diverse representation," Hamid said. “For me personally, contributing to this mentorship program is paying it forward to the next generation of pharmacists and giving back to the profession. I am also allowing pharmacy students to say  yes, it is possible to become a clinical specialist in whatever area and strive to achieve higher goals.”

P3 student Frances Abanonu felt very overwhelmed coming into her first year of pharmacy school, but having a mentor who deeply understands her has given her the reassurance and support she needed. Abanonu, who is a mother, was paired with a mentor who also attended pharmacy school with children — which Abanonu felt gave them a particularly strong connection. 

“It's difficult to tell somebody who hasn't walked in your shoes your experience; sometimes they give you advice, but it is based on their own perspective and that advice might not work well for you,” Abanonu said. “I looked up to her because of her own story — how stressful it was for her, how she survived pharmacy school and was able to graduate … She gives me words of encouragement and tells me a story from my own experience.”

Not only has she built a relationship with her mentor, but she’s found a network of colleagues who she feels comfortable reaching out to with questions and for advice. Abanonu said she plans to stay involved in the program and would volunteer to become a mentor herself because of the difference the program made for her. 

“You can't go to graduate school alone — you need that support system … if you're in a school where you have resources and opportunities like this, don't think twice,” she said. “Most importantly, you create relationships that will help you through your pharmacy school journey… If I went back in time, I would again be a member, and I will encourage any new student to consider this. Because of the support that I've received, I'm open to being a mentor to new students — that just shows you how valuable and how important this program is.”

After a successful first year for the Concordant Mentoring Program, a strategic initiative of the college, Okoro and other college leaders look forward to what’s in store for the second year. They expect more students to participate and plan to incorporate even more community building opportunities to help students expand their social and professional capital. Okoro said it’s possible more of the college’s affinity groups could gain concordant mentoring programs that could help further facilitate a sense of belonging and foster community for marginalized students in pharmacy.

“I think the key thing there is that there's shared lived experience. We expect that other groups will take off and also build their mentoring around their values and norms,” Okoro said. “The key thing with concordant mentoring is, while it has some structure, keeping it flexible enough that each group can adapt its own way of being, because there's no one size fits all.”