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Page 180 Ferrari et al. Art Int Surg 2022;2:177-85 https://dx.doi.org/10.20517/ais.2022.16

Some studies also reported that female medical students and residents deemed same-gender mentors to be
able to act as role models, addressing gender-specific concerns regarding the pursuit of a career in
surgery [25-29] . Faucett et al. also found a statistically significant difference between 112 men and women
regarding the importance of having same-gender mentorship and 113 organizations to support women in
surgery .
[26]
Having a supportive mentor is also crucial for female surgeons who are interested in pursuing an academic
career to accomplish their goals . In a survey conducted among female members of the Japan Association
[27]
of Women Surgeons, 85% of respondents thought that mentorship was necessary for female surgeons to
progress in their careers . Participants also reported that the presence of a mentor helped them to advance
[30]
in their clinical career, to stay in their job and to provide them with moral support .
[30]

For female faculty, same-gender mentors have not been reported to be particularly important, since senior
academic surgeons already know what they want for their career, and have already had both male and
female mentors during their early training. Moreover, female mentors at this stage of surgical careers are a
rare finding, due to few women occupying leadership positions in surgery . During the advanced phase of
[24]
surgical career, mentors can be various and might probably match only specific and short-term goals, so the
importance of having common characteristics, such as gender and ethnicity, is overcome by the need to
[8]
share specific professional experiences .
Another example of gender inequalities in the field of academic surgery is the paucity of women involved in
the editorial board of several surgical journals. Ehrlich et al. analyzed 2836 editorial board members from 42
[31]
US surgical journals and found that only 420 (14.8%) were women . Of 881 associate editors, 118 (13.3%)
were women and only 2/42 (4.8%) of editors-in-chief were women. Similar results have been found in
Europe by Picciariello et al., who analyzed the 50 top-ranked European surgical journals in 2020 according
to Scimago Journal & Country Rank indicator . Out of 505 associate editors, only 66 (13%) were women,
[32]
as were 3/47 (6.4%) editors-in-chief. Barriers to the access of women surgeons to the editorial board of
surgical journals are present both in North America and Western Europe.

Social media is an important instrument for networking, mentoring and sponsorship [14,15] among female
surgeons and minorities, partially overcoming the difficulties in finding same-gender and same-ethnicity
mentors within single institutions. Social media represent a modern system to create a global network and
[15]
offer assistance by sharing common experiences , enabling a connection between people around the world.
The use of social media in cardiothoracic surgery has permitted the building of a larger network of same-
gender mentorship that could not have been achieved on its own [33,34] . Luc et al. conducted a 35-item online
survey to characterize the role of social media in mentorship and networking of surgeons, with a specific
[34]
interest in same-gender mentors and the role of social media in such mentorship relationships . Women
in surgery described their opposite-sex dominant specialties and they were usually mentored by the
[34]
opposite gender in surgical specialties . In surgical specialties, women were less likely than men to have
access to an institutional mentoring program (32% vs. 56%, P = 0.014) and less likely to be exposed to same-
gender mentorship at their own institution (43% vs. 91%, P < 0.001). Therefore, responders from surgical
specialties were more likely to use social media to build a network of same-gender mentorship (P = 0.031).

DISTANCE MENTORSHIP AND TELEMENTORING
Distance mentorship models may focus on technical skills development, education progress and
professional advancement. However, available literature in surgery particularly focuses on skill development
through telementoring . Several systematic reviews performed in telementoring reached the overall
[35]