Introduction: Mentoring programmes help to facilitate the process of continuous professional development in surgery, providing an organizational structure around a mentor-mentee relationship which helps to develop the mentee. The lack of guidelines outlining how to set up such mentoring programmes, the fragmented inter-relationships of existing schemes and the lack of a unified strategy for their implementation are obstacles to the creation of such initiatives within many surgical departments.
Methods: We draw upon previous research, the experiences of certain authors and our own reflections to identify the key features of a surgical mentoring programme.
Results: We propose a ten step process which aims to encourage the development of formalised mentoring programmes in surgery.
Conclusion: This outline may improve the delivery and effectiveness of mentoring programmes, which may ultimately enhance surgical training and hence quality of patient care.