ABSTRACT

A group of senior surgical residents, who in a few months would be finishing their general surgery residency program, were commis­ erating about the roughness of some of their surgical mentors. In the residents’ own thinking, gratitude was distant since they basically equated gratitude to niceness and good treatment, which they felt they were not always receiving. In their own thinking, they were only considering the surgical faculty who were close to them. In their own thinking, faculty members were grateful but failed to express it ap­ propriately. This was not something surgeons were prepared to do. After all, the residency program, at first glance, did not appear to be dedicated to enhancing the presence and value of gratefulness to improve both life and the world of surgery. In this writing, my dedi­ cated intent is to emphasize the clear importance of gratitude in the professional lives of surgeons as well as in that of all people.