Objectives: Surgery residents have few opportunities to work closely with attending surgeons or conduct research during clinical time. We hypothesized that a mentorship elective with a required research project would benefit residents' career development, including their personal connections with faculty mentors, and would help them build their academic portfolio.

Design: We created a mentorship elective designed as a one-on-one apprenticeship. Completion of a scholarly project was a core component of the elective. Residents, faculty, and the most senior resident ('non-mentee') on the same service as the elective resident were interviewed after the completion of their rotation.

Setting: University-based surgery residency at Boston Medical Center, Boston, MA.

Participants: All 5 residents in postgraduate year 4 (PGY-4) participated in the mentorship elective during the 2019 to 2020 academic year. Residents identified their faculty mentor. All mentees (5/5), most mentors (4/5), and all non-mentees (4/4) were interviewed.

Results: All mentees reported interacting with their mentor daily, performing clinical duties or discussing their research project. For mentees, the top factor when selecting their mentor was the mentor's clinical expertise, and the most valuable aspect of the rotation was developing a relationship with their mentor. All mentors responded that their mentee gained an understanding of running an academic surgical practice and developed research skills. Four of 5 mentees completed critical portions of their scholarly project during the elective with one publishing in a peer-reviewed journal, 2 having their work accepted to a national conference, and one creating vascular surgery educational videos. All stated the elective was valuable.

Conclusions: A structured apprenticeship rotation allowed for closer relationships with attending surgeons and increased the scholarly achievement of PGY-4 surgery residents. We provide an example of how to incorporate a successful elective rotation into the surgery curriculum that strengthens resident career development and research productivity.