When I started my first job as a new grad, I was dropped into a clinic that specialized in prosthetics and amputee care, and I felt like a student all over again.
I didn't even have my own caseload. I worked off the caseload of one of the senior therapists while she watched over my shoulder with judgmental eyes and questioned almost everything I did.
At the same time, I had someone right there to ask questions, make mistakes around, and tap into a very experienced knowledge base pretty much on demand.
It was probably one of the fastest periods of learning and development I've ever had in my career.
Naturally, I became more independent and more comfortable over time. Then the roles slowly started to flip. I started taking PT students, teaching continuing education courses, teaching in PT programs, and eventually building a company around continuing education in amputee rehab.
That progression probably sounds familiar to a lot of people.
Early in your career, learning opportunities are everywhere. You have instructors, clinical mentors, senior clinicians, people reviewing your work, and people correcting you when you screw something up.
Then you get more experienced. People start coming to you for answers. Your responsibilities increase. Maybe you're mentoring students, managing a team, teaching, or becoming the person everyone else calls when they get stuck. And those built-in opportunities for somebody to challenge your thinking start disappearing.
That doesn't mean you need mentorship less in order to grow. It just means you probably have to be more intentional about finding it.
And I think we sometimes make mentorship sound way more formal than it has to be.
Sure, it can be a formal arrangement between two or more people. But it can also be calling a colleague because they know more about something than you do or because you value their perspective. It can be asking someone outside your specialty how they would approach a problem. It can be one good question that makes you rethink something you've been doing for years.
That's actually one of the things I've come to appreciate most about teaching courses.
Yes, I'm there to teach, but put a room full of clinicians together with different backgrounds, specialties, and experiences, and there's a lot of knowledge moving in every direction. I'd be an idiot to not take full advantage of that.
I think that's something all of us need as we get further into our careers.
Not necessarily a formal mentor sitting over our shoulder, although that would be nice sometimes.
Just people and environments that keep us from getting too comfortable with our own way of thinking.
Being the mentor doesn't mean you're done being mentored.