Reverse Mentoring in Global Surgical Education: Reframing Hierarchy, Partnership, and Trainee Voice
Jawad Saad1, Tareq Nasser2, Khaled J Saleh3
1Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit, Michigan; FAJR Scientific Research Collaborative, Detroit, Michigan.
Objective:
To propose reverse mentoring as a practical educational framework for global surgical education, with emphasis on trainee voice, bidirectional partnership, and equity.
Design:
Perspective article grounded in published literature on reverse mentoring, surgical mentorship, mentoring across difference, and global surgery education.
Setting:
Surgical education programs and global surgery partnerships involving trainees, faculty, and international collaborators.
Participants:
Not applicable; no participants were enrolled because this article does not report original human-subjects research.
Results:
No original outcomes are reported. No reverse mentoring program has been implemented or evaluated in a surgical training setting and the available evidence is limited to small feasibility and perception-level studies conducted outside surgery. Reverse mentoring is therefore advanced here as a hypothesis warranting a pilot rather than an established intervention. A reverse mentorship program could plausibly help programs identify hidden curriculum problems, improve feedback culture, strengthen bidirectional global partnerships, and translate equity language into educational practice.
Conclusions:
Reverse mentoring should be piloted as a structured complement to traditional mentorship in global surgical education. Programs should protect mentor time, prepare both roles, recognize junior expertise, and evaluate whether dialogue leads to concrete curricular or institutional change.