Mentoring Plastic Surgery Trainees: Learning from Current Practices in Surgery

Introduction: Cultivating plastic surgery trainees is a multifaceted endeavor, with mentorship repeatedly emerging as pivotal to trainees' growth as surgeons and leaders. While many articles discuss mentorship benefits, insights on current interventions, outcomes, and high-quality mentoring specific to surgical trainees remain sparse. This systematic review assessed resident-specific mentorship in surgery to identify effective practices and areas of strengths and weaknesses. Methods: We searched PubMed, Embase, Scopus, & Web of Science on 2/26/2023 for studies in English evaluating resident-specific mentorship explicit to surgical specialties We followed PRISMA guidelines to screen and extract data. Analyses were performed using descriptive statistics. Results: Of 2746 unique studies, 30 met inclusion criteria. Ten articles querying 1609 residents on the importance of mentorship found >90% believed mentorship should be available; >60% preferred formal/structured programs. Among 7 national survey studies of 1438 trainees, only 30% reported formal mentorship practices. Among 6 prospective studies implementing formal mentorship interventions, 78% (111/143) of trainees were satisfied with the experience. Residents reported mentors being most helpful in "career guidance and education" (12 studies, 1544 trainees; estimate score: 7.5/10) and least helpful in "networking" (7 studies, 1579 residents; mean score: 5.5/10) and "well-being/work-life balance" (3 studies, 423 trainees; mean score: 4.85/10). When considering mentor-mentee pairing, 9 studies surveyed participants for compatibility. Two papers (539 respondents) found higher satisfaction with self-selected versus assigned mentors while 4 papers (602 respondents) found no difference. Top 3 most sought mentor qualities reported in 14 articles were "specialty interest" (7/14), "approachability" (5/14), and "support" (3/14) while the most common barriers reported in 13 studies were "time constraints" (13/13) and "lack of institutional support" (5/13). Faculty were provided with resources for mentor training in 8 papers. Four programs used formal processes to monitor the efficacy of their mentoring framework, and four papers used faculty (n=3) or resident (n=1) feedback. Conclusion: Mentorship in surgical specialties is highly valued by trainees and often occurs informally. Over 75% of surgical trainees involved in structured programs valued them, indicating the importance of insitutional support in employing formal programs and affording faculty the time and training to overcome mentorship barriers. Top qualities sought in mentors were "specialty interest," "approachability," and "support," demonstrating the importance of mentor diversity. Mentees reported strong mentorship in "career guidance and education" and less successful mentorship in "networking" and "well-being/work-life balance," two areas critical to career advancement and longevity, indicating the importance of feedback and mentor guidance.