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Authors: Ian M. Kratzke, Sarah Lund, Amelia T. Collings, Dominique L. Doster, Julie M. Clanahan, Andrea J. H. Williamson, Rachel M. Jensen, Angela E. Thelen, Amy Y. Han, Rebecca S. Gates, LaDonna E. Kearse
During surgical residency, an increasing number of trainees are embracing education as a part of their professional identities. Many now aspire to focus their careers on medical or surgical education, as both educators and researchers. Supporting these ambitions during training is paramount, as there is growing recognition of the importance of representation of surgeon educators in medical education leadership positions. As such, an increasing number of programs exist for residents to pursue formal training in educational theory and scholarship as part of dedicated research time during clinical residency. These opportunities include graduate-level medical education programs as well as fellowships specific to surgical education, such as the Association for Surgical Education’s Surgical Education Research Fellowship. Residents’ ability to engage in such training opportunities is heavily dependent on the experiences, knowledge, resources, and connections of their local faculty and institution. To date, only a small number of institutions have established surgical education research programs. Therefore, without local institutional support, residents may struggle to access medical education networks and, consequently, have difficulty identifying and obtaining educational scholarship and training opportunities. Likewise, when residents attempt to independently engage with the broader surgical education community, experiences are often disjointed, as opportunities for resident involvement within national organizations occur infrequently.
To build an inclusive, synergistic, and consistently supportive space for passionate surgical residents to engage in surgical education, we created the Collaboration of Surgical Education Fellows (CoSEF). What began as an informal group of surgical residents participating in various medical education fellowships and graduate programs from across the United States has since evolved into a sustainable and structured, resident-driven organization for surgical trainees interested in education. Our mission is to provide opportunities for peer mentorship, networking, and scholarly collaboration among surgical residents with a shared interest in medical education, independent of their home institution or training program. By leveraging the broad experiences and networks of our alumni and current members, CoSEF serves as a valuable and accessible resource for curious residents, as well as faculty and medical education training programs’ leaders interested in recruiting education research fellows. While surgical education appears to be growing as a career focus for both faculty and residents, networks for aspiring surgical educators are heavily tied to their training program and therefore limited in their reach. CoSEF vastly broadens these professional networks by providing a common connection between residents irrespective of their training program. Not only does this expand the peer-mentorship network, but CoSEF opens the door for resident contact with faculty mentors from across the country through their mentees, thereby distributing valuable mentorship resources more broadly. This benefit has been ubiquitously recognized by all members of CoSEF through fostering a sense of belonging within the field of surgical education that was not previously experienced.
In addition to providing an opportunity for professional development, CoSEF actively provides members with a space to discuss, design, and implement research projects as a collective group. While traditional efforts to develop and improve surgical resident education have been led by faculty, CoSEF is novel in that it provides a national resident viewpoint on scholarly endeavors within surgical education, thereby uplifting the voice of a key stakeholder: the learner. The unique insights gained from this collaborative approach to educational scholarship promote the success of such endeavors through collective buy-in and support. This model for surgical resident-directed scholarly collaboration has been demonstrated to be beneficial in other research domains, and now, through CoSEF, is applicable to surgical education research as well. To date, CoSEF has been the starting point for several medical education research projects and has served as a resource for recruiting research assistance to a number of additional studies, which has led to numerous publications, as well as presentations at national conferences.
Although CoSEF was only recently formed, it has grown rapidly in its membership and subsequent effectiveness in achieving its mission. This is due, in part, to the strategic use of social media as a tool for promotion and recruitment. There is increasing evidence for the utility of social media as a more equitable means for professional networking, and our members are particularly adept at leveraging these forms of media. Additionally, CoSEF has engaged with national organizations such as the Association for Surgical Education and we have garnered recognition and support from faculty leaders in surgical education. Together, these strategies have identified residents and medical students interested in surgical education who were lacking mentorship for building a career within this field and subsequently provided them with the shared knowledge, experience, and resources of this group.
CoSEF could serve as a national model for building successful resident and fellow collaboration beyond the walls of individual training programs. Through regularly scheduled virtual meetings among CoSEF members, enthusiasm for pursuing the organization’s mission remains active. Furthermore, as members transition from protected professional development time back into clinical training, new members are continually added as they become enrolled in surgical education fellowships and graduate programs. We believe this model for accessibility and sustainability can easily be generalized to other specialties within the greater medical education community.
Received: 15 June 2022 / Revised: 14 August 2022 / Accepted: 22 August 2022 / Published online: 5 September 2022 © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Association for Surgical Education 2022