Mentorship programs in surgery are utilized to overcome barriers to clinical and academic productivity, research success, and work-life balance. We sought to determine if the Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma (EAST) Mentoring Program has met its goals of fostering academic and personal growth in young acute care surgeons.
We conducted a systematic program evaluation of EAST Mentoring Program's first four years. Demographic information was collected from EAST records, mentorship program applications, and mentee-mentor career development plans. We reviewed the career development plans for thematic commonalities and results of a structured, online questionnaire distributed since program inception. A mixed methods approach was used to better understand the program goals from both mentee and mentor perspectives, as well as attitudes and barriers regarding the perceived success of this career development program.
During 2012-2015, 65 mentoring dyads were paired and 60 completed the program. Of 184 surveys distributed, 108 were returned (57% response rate). Respondents were evenly distributed between mentees and mentors (53 vs. 55, p=0.768). In participant surveys, mentoring relationships were viewed to focus on research (45%), 'sticky situations' [e.g., communication, work-life balance] (27%), education (18%), or administrative issues (10%). Mentees were more focused on research and education vs. mentors (74% vs. 50%, p=0.040). Mentees felt that goals were 'always' or 'usually' met vs. mentors (89% vs. 77% p= 0.096). Two barriers to successful mentorship included time and communication, with most pairs communicating by email. Most respondents (91%) planned to continue the relationship beyond the EAST Mentoring Program and recommended the experience to colleagues.
Mentee satisfaction with the EAST Mentoring Program was high. Mentoring is a beneficial tool to promote success amongst EAST's young members, but differences exist between mentee and mentor perceptions. Revising communication expectations and time commitment to improve career development may help our young acute care surgeons.
VSTUDY TYPE: Epidemiological.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 17. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 31 October 2022.
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#2,841,538
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Outputs from Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery, The
#819
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#40,191
of 360,851 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery, The
#23
of 96 outputs
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