For decades, Frontier Nursing University’s Courier Program has drawn people from far beyond Appalachia to become immersed in public health through service. It also offers an opportunity to explore careers in healthcare and build connections. For Dr. Jonathan K. Allotey (Courier, 2016) and Dr. Elia R. Cole (Courier, 2009), the Courier Program offered a unique entry point into mentorship. Their first meeting was in 2016 when Dr. Cole (then a medical student) joined the Couriers virtually to share her experience as a courier. At the time, Dr. Allotey, an international student from Ghana, was taking a gap year after college while preparing to embark on a career in healthcare. For the next 8 years, they continued a series of conversations to support Dr. Allotey through his medical education. In 2024, Dr. Allotey graduated from Tulane University with a dual degree in Medicine and Public Health.
Dr. Allotey, now a General Surgery resident at UT Southwestern, and Dr. Cole, a Family Medicine physician with Kaiser Permanente, sat down to discuss and reflect upon the impact of mentoring within their professional journeys.
What was your introduction to mentorship?
Dr. Cole: When I think back to being a Courier, I remember the feeling of looking ahead toward a health professions career. It felt daunting. I did not have a traditional level of preparation for this kind of environment and made plenty of mistakes along the way. My wish was to teach others who can ultimately benefit from those mistakes.
Dr. Allotey: From only a few early conversations with you, I had already learned so much. I think we had about five hour-long conversations. After those five hours, I ended up in graduate school. I thought, “Wow- this is what mentorship can do. I need as many mentors as possible!”
What are the pillars of mentorship?
Dr. Allotey: There is a big component of empathy that may be the foundation of a good mentoring relationship. This is one of the things that shocked me most about you. Because I think, from the surface, it was not obvious that you would be able to empathize with my life experiences. You’re not a black woman, you’re not an immigrant. The things that made my journey very difficult up to the point you just hadn’t experienced. I was always pleasantly surprised that you still felt my burden enough to empathize.
Perhaps the second one is a certain sense of generosity. It really takes a spirit of generosity to become a good mentor.
The other third pillar for me would be knowledge. A strong knowledge base about what we’re talking about. I would say those are my top three pillars. Empathy, generosity, and knowledge.
What advice would you offer to prospective mentors and mentees?
Dr. Allotey: The first thing is, come as you are. The second is checking in. I really value checking in and following up on previous conversations. Another key element to the success of a mentoring relationship, from the perspective of a mentee, is that you have to be generously vulnerable.
Dr. Cole: What a beautiful concept, being generously vulnerable! You are absolutely correct. This experience would not have been helpful to you if you weren’t honest with me about your strengths but also with me about what you were struggling with. That’s really hard to do.
What has been the most rewarding part about being a mentor?
Dr. Cole: I have gotten the most enjoyment out of the mentoring experience helping individuals through moments of “failure.”
For me in these situations, I have felt the most overwhelmed, the most engulfed by self-doubt, wondering if I had what it takes to get through. We are traditionally not supposed to talk about failure in medicine. Yet, so often, it is actually these experiences that success is built upon. It is invaluable to have someone there to remind you of this.
Dr. Allotey: For me, mentorship renews my sense of why. Mentees offer inspiration, even if they don’t realize that they’re doing it. Dr. Cole: You have absolutely inspired me. Many times I have thought to myself, if Jonathan can be vulnerable, self-reflective, and seek out the guidance of other people, maybe I should be doing that too. Because, of course, we all have opportunities to grow personally. Whether you are mentoring or being mentored, these experiences are relevant for any stage of one’s professional career.
What are the barriers to mentorship?
Dr. Cole: I think people don’t know how to start. We might not feel we are worthy of these relationships, and we aren’t often given the social norms to have these experiences incorporated into our professional careers.
Dr. Allotey: Initially for me, I did not know very many people who had done professional work in healthcare. And I didn’t really even know how to find those people.
Another barrier is just learning how to ask for help. Acknowledging when you need help because a lot of times when you need help, it kind of takes you by surprise. And while these steps are essential to being open to professional growth, they are emotionally very difficult. It is a hard sell to ask a healthcare professional to be vulnerable or meet a colleague or a peer in a vulnerable place.
Dr. Cole: I think what we are talking about represents a culture shift. You yourself are a mentor for others, teaching with kindness and wholeheartedness. The culture shift happens through this, stepping up to the plate and being vulnerable. These conversations, including with the people that you now serve as a mentor to, continue the momentum to change this profession for the better.
For more information on Frontier’s Courier Program Public Health Internship Program, click here.
Carrie Belin is an experienced board-certified Family Nurse Practitioner and a graduate of the Johns Hopkins DNP program, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Georgetown University School of Nursing, and Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. She has also completed fellowships at Georgetown and the University of California Irvine.
Angie has been a full-scope midwife since 2009. She has experience in various birth settings including home, hospital, and birth centers. She is committed to integrating the midwifery model of care in the US. She completed her master’s degree in nurse-midwifery at Frontier Nursing University (FNU) and her Doctorate at Johns Hopkins University. She currently serves as the midwifery clinical faculty at FNU. Angie is motivated by the desire to improve the quality of healthcare and has led quality improvement projects on skin-to-skin implementation, labor induction, and improving transfer of care practices between hospital and community midwives. In 2017, she created a short film on skin-to-skin called 
Justin C. Daily, BSN, RN, has ten years of experience in nursing. At the start of his nursing career, Justin worked as a floor nurse on the oncology floor at St. Francis. He then spent two years as the Director of Nursing in a small rural Kansas hospital before returning to St. Francis and the oncology unit. He has been in his current position as the Chemo Nurse Educator for the past four years. He earned an Associate in Nurse from Hutchinson Community College and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Bethel College.
Brandy Jackson serves as the Director of Undergraduate Nursing Programs and Assistant Educator at Wichita State University and Co-Director of Access in Nursing. Brandy is a seasoned educator with over 15 years of experience. Before entering academia, Brandy served in Hospital-based leadership and Critical Care Staff nurse roles. Brandy is passionate about equity in nursing education with a focus on individuals with disabilities. Her current research interests include accommodations of nursing students with disabilities in clinical learning environments and breaking down barriers for historically unrepresented individuals to enter the nursing profession. Brandy is also actively engaged in Interprofessional Education development, creating IPE opportunities for faculty and students at Wichita State. Brandy is an active member of Wichita Women for Good and Soroptimist, with the goal to empower women and girls. Brandy is a TeamSTEPPS master trainer. She received the DASIY Award for Extraordinary Nursing Faculty in 2019 at Wichita State University. 
Dr. Sabrina Ali Jamal-Eddine is an Arab-disabled queer woman of color with a PhD in Nursing and an interdisciplinary certificate in Disability Ethics from the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). Dr. Jamal-Eddine’s doctoral research explored spoken word poetry as a form of critical narrative pedagogy to educate nursing students about disability, ableism, and disability justice. Dr. Jamal-Eddine now serves as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in UIC’s Department of Disability and Human Development and serves on the Board of Directors of the National Organization of Nurses with Disabilities (NOND). During her doctoral program, Sabrina served as a Summer Fellow at a residential National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH) Summer Institute at Arizona State University (2023), a summer fellow at Andrew W. Mellon’s National Humanities Without Walls program at University of Michigan (2022), a Summer Research Fellow at UC Berkeley’s Othering & Belonging Institute (2021), and an Illinois Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and related Disabilities (LEND) trainee (2019-2020).
Vanessa Cameron works for Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nursing Education & Professional Development. She is also attending George Washington University and progressing towards a PhD in Nursing with an emphasis on ableism in nursing. After becoming disabled in April 2021, Vanessa’s worldview and perspective changed, and a recognition of the ableism present within healthcare and within the culture of nursing was apparent. She has been working since that time to provide educational foundations for nurses about disability and ableism, provide support for fellow disabled nursing colleagues, and advocate for the disabled community within healthcare settings to reduce disparities.
Dr. Lucinda Canty is a certified nurse-midwife, Associate Professor of Nursing, and Director of the Seedworks Health Equity in Nursing Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Columbia University, a master’s degree from Yale University, specializing in nurse-midwifery, and a PhD from the University of Connecticut. Dr. Canty has provided reproductive health care for over 29 years. Her research interests include the prevention of maternal mortality and severe maternal morbidity, reducing racial and ethnic health disparities in reproductive health, promoting diversity in nursing, and eliminating racism in nursing and midwifery.
Dr. Lisa Meeks is a distinguished scholar and leader whose unwavering commitment to inclusivity and excellence has significantly influenced the landscape of health professions education and accessibility. She is the founder and executive director of the DocsWithDisabilities Initiative and holds appointments as an Associate Professor in the Departments of Learning Health Sciences and Family Medicine at the University of Michigan.
Dr. Nikia Grayson, DNP, MSN, MPH, MA, CNM, FNP-C, FACNM (she/her) is a trailblazing force in reproductive justice, blending her expertise as a public health activist, anthropologist, and family nurse-midwife to champion the rights and health of underserved communities. Graduating with distinction from Howard University, Nikia holds a bachelor’s degree in communications and a master’s degree in public health. Her academic journey also led her to the University of Memphis, where she earned a master’s in medical anthropology, and the University of Tennessee, where she achieved both a master’s in nursing and a doctorate in nursing practice. Complementing her extensive education, she completed a post-master’s certificate in midwifery at Frontier Nursing University.
Dr. Tia Brown McNair is the Vice President in the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Student Success and Executive Director for the Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) Campus Centers at the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) in Washington, DC. She oversees both funded projects and AAC&U’s continuing programs on equity, inclusive excellence, high-impact practices, and student success. McNair directs AAC&U’s Summer Institutes on High-Impact Practices and Student Success, and TRHT Campus Centers and serves as the project director for several AAC&U initiatives, including the development of a TRHT-focused campus climate toolkit. She is the lead author of From Equity Talk to Equity Walk: Expanding Practitioner Knowledge for Racial Justice in Higher Education (January 2020) and Becoming a Student-Ready College: A New Culture of Leadership for Student Success (July 2016 and August 2022 Second edition).