Isaac Newton once said, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” This famous statement emphasizes how much each of us owes our mentors for giving us a strong foundation and showing us the future. Mentorship is an important responsibility of ASES and is critical for many reasons. Mentorship allows new members to learn about the society, become involved, and have personalized training opportunities. Young ASES members are often overwhelmed with the pressures of starting a practice, autonomy, business of medicine, and work-life balance. It can seem rather overwhelming and young mentees are often eager to hear about even the mundane aspects of practice growth, personal life, and navigating your way through what often can seem like a maze of ASES involvement. These are topics not usually covered in CME offerings. During the pandemic, people were more clearly seeking outlets for professional growth that were more personal.

 

Our Mentorship program has been spearheaded by Anand Murthi working with Joe Abboud under the direction of our Membership Committee. Says Murthi, “If we have goals of improving patient care, research, and teaching, we must “mentor” our next generation and even present generation.”  This program has been in place for the past 5 years and pairs interested younger members with more seasoned ones to share experiences and discuss not only clinical cases but also everyday success and challenges and anything else they are interested in. Many of us have mentors who trained us, but it is often more difficult to develop this type of relationship in our current practices. Mentorship is invaluable to surgeons and the need was identified by our members. Involvement in this program is open to all our members. Mentoring is not a given skill. In some, it comes naturally and in others, it is a skill that requires practice and nurturing. Mentors should be able to share clinical and life experiences but also incorporate emotional intelligence, humility (we don’t know everything), and patience. This requires a variety of techniques but most importantly the ability to listen.

 

As ASES evolves from a small society of 200 to a larger society of 1300 as we are today, member involvement and engagement are critical to our success, and this requires a sense of belonging by all our members. As our society has expanded, the need for and interest in mentorship has grown. The mentorship program allows a wonderful mixing of the generations and many mentors have commented on how many life lessons they have learned from their mentees. We as teachers/mentors (although not the same skill set) benefit from 360 feedback and should continue to learn and change and adapt our mentoring skills. The program is flexible and varies with each pairing but generally involves some type of interaction monthly (Zoom or less often in person depending on the logistics). The program is critical to advancing the sense of inclusion of our new members. As the healthcare landscape changes daily and physician burnout and emotional stress increases, mentoring will only be more important for our society and healthcare in general.

 

As we complete the 5th year of the mentorship program, Drs. Murthi and Abboud along with their highly motivated and energetic task force have embarked on an ambitious plan to create an annual meeting that celebrates and further evolves the mentorship opportunity. This program would allow numerous mentors and mentees to come together to further strengthen their relationships. The program aspires to offer a well-rounded opportunity for all attendees and will focus on many of the critical areas including practice development, research, business, leadership, mental health, work-life balance, and overall health and wellbeing.

 

I encourage all ASES members to consider participating in the Mentorship program. Not only does it earn points for advancement in the society, but it is also a wonderful way to meet other members and gain from their personal experiences. We look forward to welcoming more mentors and mentees into this program in the years to come.