UAB Division of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery Professor Kimberly Hendershot, M.D., FACS, had an eventful Surgical Education Week, rising to two new leadership positions and winning a conference Shark Tank competition.
The conference, held in San Diego this year, is a collaboration between the Association for Surgical Education (ASE) and the Association of Program Directors in Surgery. The UAB Department of Surgery had a strong showing, presenting papers, leading workshops, and being elected to national office.
At the meeting, Hendershot was elected Secretary of the ASE Foundation. The Foundation provides support for grants for surgical education scholarship and training, and its mission is to “provide sustainable support for research and professional development programs of the Association for Surgical Education and its members."
Dr. Hendershot and her Shark Tank team.
“I am proud to help lead this facet of the organization that gave me so much as a young educator so I am thrilled to be able to pay it forward,” Hendershot said.
Hendershot also ascended to Chair of the ASE Graduate Surgical Education committee and will hold this role for the next two years. She had previously been vice-chair for the past two years.
Hendershot is a voting member of the ASE Board of Directors. The conference featured an ASE Shark Tank competition where projects in early stages of development are presented in order to garner support, funding, and collaboration. Hendershot, along with collaborators from other institutions, put forward a project called “Impost Syndrome in Surgery Residents: Uncharted Territory.”
The National Institutes of Health describes imposter syndrome as the “self-doubt of intellect, skills, or accomplishments among high-achieving individuals.”
Hendershot says the phenomenon isn’t new, but is becoming more recognized in medicine. “The incidence has yet to be clearly defined in medical and surgical education,” Hendershot said. “One of the goals of our project is to determine prevalence in surgical resident trainees and also attempt to elucidate when imposter syndrome starts.”
The group plans to expand the project to medical student trainees to help determine the timing of imposter syndrome and to faculty surgeons to determine if it is mitigated by time and experience or if faculty still experience it related to advancing in their academic careers.
The ASE Surgical Education Research committee will move the project forward by helping recruit participants, analyze data, and distribute results.
Hendershot is the Co-Director of the Women in Surgery Program, the Director of Education for the Division of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery, and a tenured professor of surgery.
About the ASE
The Association for Surgical Education (ASE) was founded in 1980. Its 850 members represent over 190 medical schools and institutions throughout the United States and Canada. ASE seeks to promote the art and science of education in surgery.