Mentoring Fellows in Adult Cardiothoracic Anesthesiology for Academic Practice in the Contemporary Era—Perspectives From Mentors Around the United States

It Takes a Village: A Narrative Review of Anesthesiology Mentorship

Mentorships play a critical role in the development of physician careers and should be tailored within a structured, evidence-based mentoring program to ensure mutual benefit and avoidance of pitfalls. We offer a narrative review of the current literature and commentary on mentoring at the medical student, GME trainee, and early career faculty levels within anesthesiology, and propose a framework on which an effective mentoring program can be implemented.

Common Problematic Scholarly Activity Project Planning Expectations of Project Novices

INTRODUCTION

Scholarly Activity (SA) projects, whether using methods more traditionally associated with research and or "quality improvement" projects, have been shown to confer value to resident physicians and other project novices in multiple ways. The inclusion of community and university-based residents and faculty in spearheading SA projects has led to improved understanding of medical literature and enhanced clinical practices, arguably producing more "well-rounded" physicians.

PURPOSE OF PAPER

The primary purpose of this paper is to provide a summary of problematic expectations frequently assumed by project novices when developing and conducting SA projects.

RESULTS

The authors will discuss a total of 26 problematic project-related novice expectations during five typical project phase categories.

CONCLUSIONS

Learning to navigate the complexities of training to become a practicing physician, while also planning high quality SA project designs has been and will continue to be a complex challenge. The authors hope that this article can be used by supervising faculty and other graduate medical education mentors to assist the SA project novice (SAPN) plan SA projects. By establishing realistic expectations during project planning phases, the SAPN can avoid potential missteps that typically impede SA project completion.

Con: The Length of Adult Cardiothoracic Anesthesiology Fellowship Training Should Not Be Extended Beyond One Year

Fellowship training in adult cardiothoracic anesthesiology (ACTA) is a one-year postgraduate experience with formal accreditation by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. ACTA is a competitive and evolving subspeciality. With expanding knowledge, clinical roles and technical skills required of the modern cardiothoracic anesthesiologists, the optimal structure and duration of the fellowship training are worth considering. This manuscript provides supporting rationale for fellowship training in ACTA to remain one year in duration. The expanding responsibilities of the cardiothoracic anesthesiologist and strategies to best train the future of the subspecialty within the current training structure are discussed. It also briefly examines the history and current status of the fellowship training, reviews considerations for increasing fellowship duration, and highlights personal and financial considerations during the training.