Could your experience help another doctor?
Yes.
The medical profession has always relied on each generation supporting the next. Every one of us can think of senior colleagues who helped us navigate difficult stages in our careers.
In our current pressurised healthcare system doctors face significant pressures at every stage of their careers, from medical school and training to leadership roles and professional challenges. Such pressures are most acutely felt by doctors with protected characteristics: published evidence shows these doctors benefit most from formal mentoring.
Retired doctors possess knowledge, judgement and experience that can support colleagues at every career stage. These attributes are the core skills required to be a mentor.
If you are considering becoming a mentor-read on.
What next?
For some, retirement means more time with family, travel, volunteering or long-postponed interests. For others, it creates space to remain connected to medicine in different ways. What retirement does not do is diminish the knowledge, judgement and experience acquired over a professional lifetime.
That is why I passionately believe that mentoring should be available for every doctor throughout their working lives.
Over many years, I have been involved in mentoring and peer support work for doctors, including through the BMA’s Doctor Support Service, helping colleagues through some of the most challenging periods of their professional lives.
Through that experience, I have seen first-hand the difference a supportive conversation can make. Often, people are not looking for someone to solve their problems. They are looking for someone who understands the pressures of medical practice, will listen without judgement and help them think through their options.
All any doctor wants is to know that: 'Somebody cares and I am not alone.'
Mentoring is about listening, not telling
One of the persistent misconceptions about mentoring is that mentors must have all the answers.
In reality, mentoring is not about providing instructions or offering easy solutions. It is about helping another person reflect, develop confidence, identify goals and find their own way forward. Sometimes the most valuable thing a mentor can offer is simply time, perspective and a non-judgemental listening ear - a caring knowledgeable critical friend.
Throughout medicine, colleagues face significant challenges, including taking on leadership roles, navigating career transitions, managing workplace pressures and dealing with colleagues and professional uncertainty. Access to an experienced and independent colleague can be particularly valuable for doctors who lack established professional networks or feel isolated in their working environment.
Why retired doctors have something distinctive to offer
Retired doctors offer breadth of experience across clinical practice, education, leadership and representation. They have the luxury of time that working doctors, well meaning as they may be, simply do not.
Within the retired membership alone are former GPs, consultants, public health specialists, academics, educators, managers, negotiators, committee leaders and elected representatives. Collectively, retired members have lived through countless professional, organisational and societal changes.
That hard-earned experience remains valuable.
Retired doctors also bring a degree of independence. We are not appraisers, managers or employers. We can often provide a perspective that is detached from workplace structures and professional hierarchies. The mentee can share more freely without fear of impact on workplace relations or career prospects.
Building on a long-standing ambition
The idea that retired doctors should support newer generations is not new.
For many years, retired members have advocated greater use of mentoring within the profession. Successive BMA retired members' policies have highlighted the potential for retired doctors to support medical students, trainees, newly appointed consultants and younger colleagues.
At the 2026 Retired Members Conference, I proposed a motion on mentoring that built on those earlier policies and sought renewed BMA action in this area. The motion recognised the challenges faced by medical students and doctors throughout their careers, the impact of work-related stress on morale, wellbeing, burnout and patient safety, and the evidence that structured mentoring programmes can help address these challenges.
It highlighted the willingness of appropriately trained retired doctors to support the next generation through mentoring and by sharing experience in areas such as clinical conflicts, management issues, communication skills and service planning. It also called on the BMA to:
– Train and maintain a list of suitable and willing mentors;
– Develop an NHS-wide mentoring scheme in consultation with the profession and the GMC; and
– Lobby governments to fund such a scheme.
The motion was carried and therefore forms part of RMC policy. Mentoring and peer support have also been included in the committee’s agreed priorities and workplan for 2026–27.
There is now a practical opportunity to build on that ambition. Mentoring programmes across the BMA and a number of Royal Colleges provide established routes for experienced doctors who want to offer their time and expertise.
How retired members can get involved
Become a BMA committee mentor. The BMA Committee Mentoring Programme supports newer committee members in their representative roles. Current and former BMA committee members can apply to share their medico-political experience. The BMA’s mentoring guidance for doctors also explains mentoring skills, good practice and the benefits of becoming a mentor.
The RMC will continue to look for opportunities for retired doctors to contribute through mentoring. If you would like to find out more or register your interest, email [email protected].
Useful links
Royal College mentoring opportunities include:
A final thought
For me, mentoring remains one of the most rewarding ways of contributing to the profession. The evidence for its positive impact on working doctors is considerable- a better supported workforce helps with recruitment, retention, productivity and morale. From the employer perspective patient safety is enhanced and cost savings realised by reduced staff absence due to stress and burnout. The GMC recognised all these outcomes in their publication 'Setting up a Mentoring Service' in 2024.
A culture change is required, and I would welcome BMA council and elected members leading on this by sharing how their experiences of mentoring on the BMA website. Their input would be such a powerful catalyst.
As mentors you do not need to have all the answers. What matters is being willing to listen, share experience and help a colleague think through the opportunities and challenges they face.
If you can spare some time, consider becoming a mentor. What you have learned during your career could make a lasting difference to a colleague.
Surjait Singh is a retired general surgeon and former BMA retired members conference chair