The Training Room

The Value of Senior Mentorship Among Orthopaedic Surgeons

Salazar, Dane H. MD, MBA; Schiff, Adam P. MD; Light, Terry R. MD

From the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and Rehabilitation, Loyola University Health System, Maywood, IL.

None of the following authors or any immediate family member has received anything of value from or has stock or stock options held in a commercial company or institution related directly or indirectly to the subject of this article: Dr. Salazar, Dr. Schiff, and Dr. Light.

Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons 27(23):p 861-867, December 1, 2019. | DOI: 10.5435/JAAOS-D-19-00028

Abstract

Because of the ever increasing economic, social, legal, and regulatory complexities of the current healthcare environment, traditional clinical training may be insufficient to establish a thriving surgical practice and to achieve individual career goals. Competing constituencies and agendas require thoughtful strategies to achieve professional goals. An orthopaedic surgeon's formal professional education, research experience, and clinical expertise may not fully equip individuals for success in the contemporary healthcare market. With the pressures of modern surgical practices, formal and informal senior mentorship may be critically important, especially for young orthopaedic surgeons. The role of mentorship in job satisfaction, retention, clinical productivity, and research output has been recently investigated across multiple medical and surgical disciplines. These data support the theory that senior mentorship is critical for retention, job satisfaction, clinical volume, professional networking, career progression, and research productivity.