Purpose <p>Negative sentiment about surgery is prevalent among medical students. Reddit is a popular discussion platform that students often consult to examine contemporary culture. We sought to analyze sentiment among Reddit contributors regarding surgical culture using natural language processing and thematic topic modeling.</p> Methods <p>In September 2024, we queried Reddit with search terms regarding workplace culture, education, and career interest in surgery or family medicine. Original posts (OP) and comments and replies (CR) were manually assigned a valence of Positive, Negative, Neutral, or Mixed sentiment by the study team that repeated using a large language model (LLM) processing application. Proportions of sentiment were compared among specialties using a χ². Topic modeling was performed to identify common themes regarding surgical culture.</p> Results <p>We reviewed 44 OP with 2641 CR regarding surgery and 23 OP with 1909 CR regarding family medicine. Agreement of LLM-derived and study team member-assigned valences was 100% for all content included. Sentiment analysis revealed 48% of content related to surgery was predominantly negative and rarely positive (5%), while that of family medicine was predominantly positive (57%) and rarely negative (9%). Topic modeling of content regarding surgery identified the following common themes: Toxicity (51.2%), Lack of Support (30.2%), and Abuse/Harassment (27.9%).</p> Conclusion <p>Negative sentiment regarding surgical culture is unavoidable in Reddit forums. Students regularly consult these forums to become familiar with prevailing sentiments about their potential future careers. Surgical educators should engage in Reddit discourse to contribute authentic and informed dialog regarding their work culture.</p>