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. 2023 Apr;225(4):656-659.
doi: 10.1016/j.amjsurg.2022.10.060. Epub 2022 Nov 5.

Participant perspectives on a department of surgery faculty mentoring program

Andrea Gillis  1 , Polina Zmijewski  2 , Britney Corey  2 , Jessica Fazendin  2 , Herbert Chen  2 , Brenessa Lindeman  2 , Kimberly Hendershot  2 , Sophie Dream  3
Affiliations

Participant perspectives on a department of surgery faculty mentoring program

Andrea Gillis et al. Am J Surg. 2023 Apr.

Abstract

Background: Mentorship in academic medicine serves to promote career advancement and job satisfaction. This study was to evaluate the initial results of a faculty mentorship program in an academic Department of Surgery.

Methods: A faculty mentorship program was initiated in July 2015 with 63 participants. Junior faculty mentees (n = 35) were assigned senior faculty mentors (n = 28). After three years, an electronic survey was administered and the results analyzed.

Results: Response rate was 67% (n = 42). 34 (81%) respondents had met with their mentor/mentee at least once. Topics discussed included: research (76%), leadership (52%), work-life balance (45%), and promotion (5%). Mentees endorsed achieving promotion (n = 2), increasing research productivity (n = 2), and obtaining national committee positions (n = 2). 61% of mentors and 53% of mentees felt they benefitted personally from the program. Actionable improvements to the mentorship program were identified including more thoughtful pairing of mentors and mentees with similar research interests.

Conclusions: Participants felt the mentorship program was beneficial. Further investigation regarding the optimization of the mentor-mentee pairing is warranted to maximize the benefits from structured mentorship in academic surgery.

Keywords: Academic surgery; Diversity equity inclusion; Education; Mentorship; Surgery.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest AG, PZ, KH, JF, HC, SD, BC, BL - none.

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