Even with differing styles as mentors, the result has always been the same for Kevin Shannon, MD, and Monica Gandhi, MD, MPH.
Their mentees know that better than anybody.
The prestigious Lifetime Achievement in Mentoring Award is given annually by the UCSF Faculty Mentoring Program to recognize the sustained commitment of senior faculty to mentoring.
Last month, Shannon and Gandhi’s career-long efforts to nurture the next generation of scientists were honored with the prestigious Lifetime Achievement in Mentoring Award in front of admiring family, friends, colleagues and trainees at UCSF Mission Bay.
The award, given annually by the UCSF Faculty Mentoring Program to recognize the sustained commitment of senior faculty to mentoring, has now gone to two deserving faculty members in the same year just four times since it was created in 2007.
“It's important to celebrate mentorship at UCSF,” said Mitchell Feldman, MD, MPhil, FACP, UCSF professor of medicine, chief of the UCSF Division of General Internal Medicine, and associate vice provost of faculty mentoring.
“These are two spectacular mentors,” he added.
It was established after a climate survey in 2001 showing faculty were not satisfied with the quality of mentoring at UCSF. Its overall aim was to improve the mentoring climate for all faculty with a particular focus on women and underrepresented minority faculty.
“This award is a reminder that UCSF is forged on these incredibly special relationships, both the doctor-patient relationship and the mentor-mentee relationship,” said Catherine Lucey, MD, MACP, UCSF executive vice chancellor and provost.
Leading from the back
Shannon is known to love a good sports metaphor to get a point across.
But while many might see him as a head coach, he believes the mentor-mentee relationship is more a team game. “It’s a partnership,” he said. “They bring out the best in you and you bring out the best in them. You’re more a guide than a boss.”
Shannon is the Auerback Distinguished Professor of Molecular Oncology and an American Cancer Society Research Professor in the UCSF Department of Pediatrics, where he also serves as vice chair for laboratory research. He has been a UCSF faculty member for 31 years. Before that, Shannon served in the U.S. Navy Medical Corps, stationed at Treasure Island and Naval Hospital in Oakland after completing residency training at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.
Kevin Shannon, MD, receives the UCSF Faculty Lifetime Achievement in Mentoring award. Photo by Barbara Reis
His 10 years in the Navy included three as a fellow at UCSF in pediatric hematology oncology in the lab of Y.W. Kan.
“When I was in the Navy, I was involved in a small pediatric residency program there and won a couple of mentoring awards,” Shannon said. “I guess I always gravitated toward sharing my excitement for medicine and explaining things to trainees and students in a way that you can look under the hood and figure out how it all works.”
That passion for connecting clinical medicine to laboratory research guided Shannon during his time as director of the UCSF Medical Scientist Training Program from 2006 to 2012. He also led the UCSF Physician Scientist Scholar Program from its inception in 2013 until 2024 and was interim chair of the Department of Pediatrics from 2009 to 2010 and 2017 to 2019.
Many of Shannon’s mentees have come through his UCSF laboratory.
“There are dozens, I’d say hundreds of people that have received wisdom from Kevin Shannon over the years,” said Catherine Smith, MD, associate professor in the UCSF School of Medicine. Smith spoke about Shannon at the ceremony, lauding his ability to connect and inspire people around him, especially women learners.
“Kevin really believes in people,” Smith said. “He sees potential in people, many times before you see it yourself. When someone like Kevin believes in you, you think, ‘If Kevin thinks I can do it, then maybe I can do it.’ I wouldn’t be where I am in my career today if not for that at one point in my life, Kevin Shannon said, ‘I think you can do this.’”
Reflecting on his mentoring approach, Shannon called the award a “tremendous honor.”
“Skill sets among mentees can be quite different. There are a lot of things all good mentors have in common. They care about their mentees. They listen to them, try to help them develop their own ideas and help them find something to be passionate about when they get out of bed in the morning.”
During his career, Shannon has mentored medical students, graduate students, post-doctoral scholars and junior faculty members. Four of his UCSF medical students went on to receive the annual Dean’s Research Prize lab and seven trainees in his lab have received “K” series awards from the National Institutes of Health.
Many have gone on to successful research careers in academia and industry.