Mentor magazine is a quarterly magazine which contains wider reading to inspire aspiring healthcare students and provides opportunities for omni-directional mentorship. The magazine is a multidisciplinary project, as reflected in its leadership team consisting of medical, veterinary and dental students. Taking a One Health approach has resulted in a publication which demonstrates collaborative working and the transferable nature of healthcare skills to future leaders. Mentoring prospective healthcare students in writing an article develops the ability to act on feedback and respond appropriately to constructive criticism. Opportunities to publish outside of the school curriculum encourage students to seek challenges consistent with a growth mindset.

A survey was created to map skills learned to the Medical Leadership Competency Framework’s areas for leadership and management development, to ensure that processes were shaping future healthcare leaders. Initial data is overwhelmingly positive: 77% of contributors would recommend writing for the magazine. Students feel they learned how to use feedback to develop their skills (69%), learned how to critically appraise scientific literature (58%) and learned about the process of mentoring (58%). Open-text feedback shows that contributors enjoy the process: ‘it’s satisfying and rewarding’; ‘it is an amazing experience in which you...develop essential skills’. This project has shown that the skills of healthcare leadership can be developed at the earliest career stages. To meet growing demand, the publication portfolio of Mentor was remodelled to contain content written by undergraduate students and qualified healthcare professionals. Once the new portfolio has been launched, a follow-up survey will be sent to subscribers and contributors. We feel we have implemented a streamlined process for students to develop key leadership and management skills with the support of more experienced student editors.