Students helping students: vertical peer mentoring to enhance the medical school experience

Abstract

BackgroundEffective mentoring is an important component of medical student professional development. We provide a description of the mentoring program at our institution.MethodsOur institution UTHSCSA implemented a student-advising program (Veritas) with clinical faculty mentors and senior students (MiMs). The MiMs provided vertical peer mentoring to more junior students as an adjunct to faculty advising. The MiMs lead small group discussions that foster camaraderie, share academic and career information and promote professional identity. An optional MiM elective more intensively develops mentorship and leadership skills through a formal curriculum. The authors used annual survey data of all students as well as student mentors to evaluate program effectiveness.ResultsOverall, student perception of the program improved each year across multiple domains, including feeling more prepared, supported and satisfied with their overall experience in medical school. Student mentors also found the process rewarding and helpful to their future careers as physicians.ConclusionsThe authors suggest implementing a vertical peer-mentoring program can be an effective adjunct to faculty mentoring.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13104-017-2498-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Peer mentoring: Enhancing the transition from student to professional

“…The links between mentorship skills and professionalism have also been recognised by Nettleton and Bray (2008) in their research involving nursing, midwifery and medicine. Vertical peer mentoring in a Texan medical school has similarly been shown to promote professional identity, enhance leadership skills and benefit future careers (Andre et al, 2017); this was, however, limited to an academic context, while our model broadens this to practice.…”

Mentorship of US Medical Students: a Systematic Review

“…The goal of the tiered model was to offer mentorship across the spectrum of academic position so that the residents and fourth year medical students who were serving as mentors to more junior students could also receive mentorship from the faculty. An additional program that used multiple models of mentorship also described a "vertical" approach with a similar goal of providing mentorship across the spectrum of academic position 30 .…”

“…Seven of the 28 programs used a combination of models, specifically dyad and group mentoring 2,[30][31][32][33][34][35] . Four of these programs were part of larger longitudinal initiatives by the medical school within the context of an advisory college/dean program.…”

“…Four of these programs were part of larger longitudinal initiatives by the medical school within the context of an advisory college/dean program. In these programs, faculty members were often assigned a group of medical students whom they met with in groups and individually to offer mentorship and assist with professional development and career planning 2,30,32,33 . In general, group mentoring was used to discuss broadly applicable topics, which then allowed the one-on-one meetings to be more specific to the individual needs of the student.…”

“…Most programs stated broad objectives including assisting medical students with career development/career planning 2,10,12,14,30 , professional development 11,12,19,23,24,26,30,32,33 , and well-being 29,32 .…”