Celebrating a Year of Work: AWS Resident and Fellow Committee 2024–2025

By Camila R. Guetter, MD, MPH

This past year has been an incredibly exciting and productive one for the AWS Resident and Fellow Committee. With a mission to support surgical trainees through education, mentorship, and advocacy, the committee has made significant strides in expanding opportunities, enhancing resources, and fostering a stronger sense of community among residents and fellows.

We’ve held consistent monthly committee calls, which have served as a collaborative platform to share ideas, launch initiatives, and build connections across training levels and institutions. Our bi-monthly webinar series continues to be a cornerstone of our programming, each designed to address critical challenges surgical trainees face, and attracting attendees from all geographical regions and levels of training. Topics this year included fertility preservation and family planning in surgical training (speaker: Dr. Bortoletto), crafting your research years (speaker: Dr. Martinez Quinones), parental leave in surgical training (speaker: Dr. Altieri), “Dear Intern” (panel of residents/fellows), and shaping your surgical career (Dr. Kulaylat). You can access recordings from previous sessions in the Webinar and Workshop Library on the AWS website. Upcoming webinars will cover contract basics of negotiation (September 9, 2025, register here) and personal branding strategies for trainees and surgeons (December 9, 2025, register here).

To extend the impact of these webinar discussions, the committee has collaborated with the AWS blog team to produce companion blog articles that summarize key points and link to resources. These efforts make our content accessible and shareable even after the events have concluded, especially for those trainees who are interested in the content but unable to attend the event live. Examples of blog articles regarding the webinars on fertility preservation/family planning and parental leave can be found here and here, respectively. The committee has also been working on manuscripts for publication in academic journals on the topic of fertility preservation and the importance of supporting trainees through their fertility journey and procedures, reflecting the committee’s commitment to both advocacy and academic engagement.

This year also saw the creation of a monthly “Resident and Fellow’s Corner” in the AWS newsletter, providing regular updates, tips, and highlights among AWS resources tailored to trainees. A welcome packet for newly matched residents is also being developed to help ease the transition into surgical training and introduce new members to AWS and our committee’s resources.

Collaboration has remained a key theme. The committee has worked closely with the Medical Student Committee to mentor journal club participants and provide moderators for discussions, as well as assist with selecting abstracts for the AWS Annual Conference scientific session (AWS Starr Forum), and plan for the Resident and Student Mixer at the 2025 AWS conference. Behind the scenes, the committee has also undergone a leadership restructuring, creating more opportunities for residents and fellows to take active roles in shaping our work within the committee.  As we plan for the year ahead, leadership elections for the new year have just opened up. If you are interested in getting more involved with AWS as a resident or clinical fellow, make sure to apply by September 25th using this link: https://womensurg.memberclicks.net/resfellapp2025.

We are always looking for new voices and perspectives. Whether you’re passionate about mentorship, advocacy, research, or simply want to connect with others in the surgical training community, we encourage you to get involved. Join one of our committee calls, which happen on the first Thursday of every month at 8:30 PM EST, where you can learn more about what we do or how to get involved!

It has been an incredible pleasure and honor to lead this group this year, and I can’t wait to see all of the wonderful things the AWS Resident and Fellow Committee will continue to accomplish in the years to come!

Camila Guetter, MD MPH, is a General Surgery Resident at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, in Boston, MA. She is currently in her research years of residency, working as a research fellow in vascular surgery clinical outcomes at BIDMC and pursuing a PhD in Clinical Epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Before residency, she obtained a Masters in Public Health degree with a focus in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her interests include vascular surgery and its interface with populational health and surgical outcomes research. She has been actively involved with AWS since medical school and currently serves as Chair for the Resident and Fellow Committee of the AWS.