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Steven Thornton

House Staff
Surgery

Overview


Start Year: 2023

College/University: North Carolina State University

Post-Baccalaureate: Johns Hopkins University

Medical School: Duke University School of Medicine

Clinical Interests: Cancer Surgery

Academic Interests: Broadly, my academic interests are defined by a desire to advance the field of surgical education. More specifically, I am interested in simulation, technical skills acquisition, curriculum development, and the labor economics of surgical training.

Grants: 
- Developing Interdisciplinary Models for Surgical Education awarded by Duke University: Bass Connections (2025 - 2026)
- Behind a Mask of Shame: A Hermeneutic Phenomenologic Exploration of Surgical Residents’ Experiences with Shame awarded by the Association for Surgical Education: Center for Excellence in Surgical Education, Research, and Training (2025 - 2026)
Use of Interdisciplinary Simulation in Pediatric Trauma Resuscitation to Improve Pediatric Readiness (L40) awarded by the National Institutes of Health (2025 - 2027)

Current Appointments & Affiliations


Recent Publications


Applying a Shame Lens to Understand Surgical Resident Well-Being: A Call for a Mixed Methods Research Agenda to Build Shame Competence.

Journal Article J Surg Educ · January 2026 There is a well-known but incompletely described well-being crisis in surgery. Rates of poor mental health, substance misuse, and self-harm ideation are concerningly high. There is a growing interest in, and a related body of literature seeking to understa ... Full text Link to item Cite

The collaboration of surgical education fellows' (CoSEF) guide to designing, executing, and publishing surgical education research.

Journal Article Global surgical education : journal of the Association for Surgical Education · January 2026 Full text Cite
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