• There’s a growing need for surgeons to engage with qualitative studies to understand patient experiences better.
• This article offers clear guidelines on crafting qualitative articles for surgical journals, focusing on effective communication and methodological rigor.

Surgeons can leverage these insights to improve patient care and address complex health issues more comprehensively.

• By increasing the representation of qualitative studies, we can enrich the surgical literature and inform practice with nuanced patient perspectives.

Women remain underrepresented in general surgery residency leadership, limiting equity in surgical practice.

• In 363 programs, only 33.4% of leaders are women, with men dominating all leadership roles except assistant professors.
• Men have more years of practice and higher scholarly output, though this difference disappears when accounting for career length.

Improving promotion paths and leadership selection could help balance gender representation.

• Disparity is most pronounced at the department chair level, suggesting systemic barriers in academic advancement.

Surgeons are missing crucial opportunities to integrate palliative care for seriously ill older patients undergoing elective surgeries.

• Palliative care practices were infrequently utilized, despite their importance.
• Clinicians from various surgical fields acknowledged alignment with palliative care, but many felt it conflicted with their role.

Surgeons often prioritized technical issues over patients’ psychosocial concerns, indicating the need for improved communication.

• Reframing the surgical identity could bridge gaps between surgical and palliative care objectives.