Participant perspectives on a department of surgery faculty mentoring program

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 opti-mization of the mentor-mentee pairing is warranted to maximize the benefits from structured mentorship in academic surgery.