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Abstract
[...]awareness of mentorship programs that have been successful in promoting DEI is an important step towards helping to inspire and facilitate future recruitment of surgeons of underrepresented identities/backgrounds and help to ensure that the future of surgery is more diverse, equitable, and inclusive. Jadi et al. describe how, despite the limitations of a virtual platform, a mentorship program conducted by the Association of Women Surgeons was able to significantly increase networking and other skills for career advancement among medical students from groups underrepresented in medicine.9 Similar benefits were found amongst participants in a mentorship program established between surgical residents and medical students.10 In this mentorship program, mentees who received mentorship at least twice from their mentor over the course of the program were significantly more likely to have positive perceptions of the operating room and receive mentorship and feedback from attending surgeons as well.10 Of note, there is a great need of future studies, ideally, large studies conducted over long time periods, that can objectively demonstrate the effectiveness and benefits of early mentorship programs. [...]increased implementation and expansion of mentorship programs does not negate the need for additional interventions to increase DEI in surgery. [...]increasing diversity, equity and inclusion needs to begin early in the medical pipeline, and mentorship programs aimed at exposing students of underrepresented identities/backgrounds to surgery can increase the likelihood of these students successfully pursuing surgery in the future.