The impact of mentoring relationships on professional identity formation in medical education: a systematic review

Background: The promise that enduring and personalised mentoring relationships shape how mentees think, feel and act as professionals, or their professional identity formation (PIF), and thus how they interact, care and support patients and families has garnered significant interest. However, efforts to marshall these elements have been limited due to a lack of effective understanding. To address this lacunae, a systematic scoping review was carried out to map current knowledge on mentoring relationships and its impact on PIF. Methods: Guided by PRISMA guidelines and the Systematic Evidence-Based Approach (SEBA) to ensure a consistent and reproducible review, independent searches and appraisals of relevant articles published between 1st January 2000 and 4th December 2024 on PubMed, Embase, ERIC and Scopus databases were performed. Data from included articles were content and thematically analysed. Related themes and categories were combined using the SEBA methodology. Results: 248 articles were identified across four databases and snowballing of key articles. A total of 27 articles were included. The domains identified were: (1) the mentoring ecosystem; (2) mentoring dynamics; (3) shifts in belief systems and professional identity; and (4) complex adaptive systems. Conclusions: The mentoring programme can be seen as a mentoring ecosystem, functioning as a community of practice and supporting the socialisation process within its boundaries and along the mentoring trajectory. The culture and structure of the mentoring ecosystem help inculcate the shared belief systems and programme identity. It also nurtures stakeholder investment and commitment, as well as their internal compass which is key to contending with the complex array of influences upon their development. Through the lens of a complex adaptive system, it is also possible to appreciate transitions between roles and responsibilities and the notion of being and becoming. These findings underline the evolving nature of practice and the need for personalised and longitudinal mentoring support. © The Author(s) 2025.