This is especially true when the research supervision is occurs over a extended period and research is the trainees main activity as with doctoral students and their dissertation supervisors or post doctoral fellows or associates and their sponsors, but applies also to other trainees, such as residents, medical fellows, and bachelor's and master's students. Trainees learn many positive and negative lessons are learned about responsible research conduct from observing and interacting with their supervisors. Unfortunately negative lessons can be learned from misunderstood behavior as well as bad behavior. It is important that supervisors be able to discuss with their trainees how and why their research is conducted as it is. Istitutions have a role in facilitating those discussions.
Supervisors often function as mentors.
A mentor is not only a reaserch supervisor but also an example and source of guidance about professional development and how to cope with a host of responsibilities that attend being a research investigator. Fulfillment of thoese responsibilities include not only skills in writng and reviewing papers, lab management, grant writing, job seeking, and the management of time and commitments, but also the development of ethical judgment and standards for treaing others fairly, and simultaneously meeting responsibilities for education of students, for advancement of one's field, to colleagues and collaborators, to one's institution and to one's funding agencies. It is the fortunate doctoral student or post doc who has a true mento as his or her supervisor. Group mentoring and peer mentoring, including discussions of how to cope with difficult but problem situations may help a lab or department or institution identify key values and standards and to transmit good ways of meeting those standards that are appropriate to the conditions of research in one's field. More on mentoring of trainees and junior faculty Method Distribution of scenarios and related discussion questions to the students and faculty.