Match Rates for a Surgical Mentorship Program for Underrepresented Learners

Students from underrepresented groups (ie, underrepresented in the medical profession relative to their numbers in the general population) face substantial challenges in pursuing surgical careers. Equitable access to inclusive mentorship may help address these challenges; however, the surgical residency match outcomes of participants in dedicated surgical mentorship programs for underrepresented learners are not well described.

To report the 3-year outcomes of UpSurge, a surgical mentorship program for underrepresented learners in Canada.

This was a quality improvement study using retrospective mentorship program data on underrepresented learners who participated in the University of Toronto's UpSurge program between 2022 and 2025.

UpSurge paired medical students with surgical faculty, fellows, and residents; hosted educational workshops; and provided merit-based scholarships for underrepresented learners.

Residency match information, including specialty/location, was obtained from mentees through self-report as well as through publicly available residency program websites and social media platforms.

Overall, 235 mentees (175 [74%] Canadian medical students and 60 [26%] international medical students/graduates) participated in UpSurge between 2022 and 2025. All mentees who participated in UpSurge self-identified as underrepresented. Mentees were not asked to provide information about the specific underrepresented group with which they self-identified, and therefore, this information was not reported in this study. Canadian medical students came from 14 of the 18 medical schools across the country. International medical students and graduates attended medical schools in 30 countries across 11 geographic regions, including Western Europe (25%), the Caribbean (18%), the Middle East (10%), South Asia (10%), and North Africa (10%). There were 225 mentors from 11 surgical disciplines, representing all Canadian direct-entry surgical specialties. Of the 175 Canadian medical students who participated in UpSurge, 52 (30%) were eligible to be residents at the time of this analysis (November 2025). Overall, 30 of 52 (57.7%) students matched to surgical disciplines, with the top specialties being general surgery (19 of 30 [63%]), plastic surgery (4 of 30 [13%]), and obstetrics and gynecology (2 of 30 [7%]). There were 16 scholarship recipients between 2023 and 2025 from 5 medical schools across Canada. Fourteen (88%) matched to surgical disciplines, with the top specialties being general surgery (4 [25%]), plastic surgery (4 [25%]), and urology (3 [19%]).

Results of this study suggest that continued investment into large and diverse mentorship programs with high surgical residency match rates, such as UpSurge, may help improve surgical workforce diversity.