PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Lisa Marie Knowlton AU - William Jason Butler AU - Ryan Peter Dumas AU - Brittany K Bankhead AU - Jonathan P Meizoso AU - Brandon Bruns AU - Jan-Michael Van Gent AU - Haytham M A Kaafarani AU - Matthew J Martin AU - Nicholas Namias AU - Deborah M. Stein AU - Matthew D Tadlock AU - R Shayn Martin AU - Kristan L Staudenmayer AU - Jennifer M Gurney TI - Power of mentorship for civilian and military acute care surgeons: identifying and leveraging opportunities for longitudinal professional development AID - 10.1136/tsaco-2022-001049 DP - 2023 Feb 01 TA - Trauma Surgery & Acute Care Open PG - e001049 VI - 8 IP - 1 4099 - http://tsaco.bmj.com/content/8/1/e001049.short 4100 - http://tsaco.bmj.com/content/8/1/e001049.full SO - Trauma Surg Acute Care Open2023 Feb 01; 8 AB - Across disciplines, mentorship has been recognized as a key to success. Acute care surgeons, focused on the care of trauma surgery, emergency general surgery and surgical critical care, practice in a wide variety of settings and have unique mentorship needs across all phases of their career. Recognizing the need for robust mentorship and professional development, the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma (AAST) convened an expert panel entitled ‘The Power of Mentorship’ at the 81st annual meeting in September 2022 (Chicago, Illinois). This was a collaboration between the AAST Associate Member Council (consisting of surgical resident, fellow and junior faculty members), the AAST Military Liaison Committee, and the AAST Healthcare Economics Committee. Led by two moderators, the panel consisted of five real-life mentor-mentee pairs. They addressed the following realms of mentorship: clinical, research, executive leadership and career development, mentorship through professional societies, and mentorship for military-trained surgeons. Recommendations, as well as pearls and pitfalls, are summarized below.