Managing career transitions in the profession of acute care surgery.

Career shifts are a naturally occurring part of the trauma and acute care surgeon's profession. These transitions may occur at various timepoints throughout a surgeon's career and each has their own specific challenges. Finding a good fit for your first job is critical for ensuring success as an early career surgeon. Equally, understanding how to navigate promotions or a change in job location mid-career can be fraught with uncertainty. As one progresses in their career, knowing when to take on a leadership position is oftentimes difficult as it may mean a change in priorities. Finally, navigating your path towards a fulfilling retirement is a complex discussion that is different for each surgeon. The American Association for the Surgery of Trauma (AAST) convened an expert panel of acute care surgeons in a virtual grand rounds session in August 2023 to address the aforementioned career transitions and highlight strategies for successfully navigating each shift. This was a collaboration between the AAST Associate Member Council (consisting of surgical resident, fellow and junior faculty members), the AAST Military Liaison Committee and the AAST Healthcare Economics Committee. Led by two moderators, the panel consisted of early, mid-career and senior surgeons, and recommendations are summarized below and in figure 1.

Faith Leaders' Views on Collaboration with Mental Health Professionals.

When faced with experiences of mental struggle, Americans often turn to faith leaders as their first recourse. Although studies have explored religious leaders' mental health literacy, few studies have investigated how religious leaders believe faith communities and mental health professionals should collaborate. The data gathered for this research is from in-depth and focus group interviews with faith leaders from Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, and Sikh communities in South Texas and the Mid-Atlantic region between 2017-2019 (n=67). This research analyzed faith leaders' response to the question "How can mental health professionals and faith communities better work together" by utilizing the flexible coding approach (Deterding and Waters 2018). Four distinct themes emerged from the faith leaders' responses: education, relationship building, external factors, and dismissal. By learning about how faith leaders believe they can better work together with mental health professionals we can help bridge the gap between religion and mental health further by fostering a much-needed dialogue between these two groups.