Near-peer mentoring to complement faculty mentoring of first-year medical students in India

Abstract

Purpose:The first year is stressful for new medical students who have to cope with curricular challenges, relocation issues, and separation from family. Mentoring reduces stress and facilitates adaptation. A program for faculty mentoring of first-semester students was initiated by the Medical Education Unit in 2009 at University College of Medical Sciences, Delhi. Feedback after the first year revealed that mentees were reluctant to meet their mentors, some of whom were senior faculty. In the following year, student mentors (near-peers) were recruited to see if that would improve the rate and quality of contact between mentees and mentors.Methods:Volunteer faculty (n=52), near-peers (n=57), and new entrants (n=148) admitted in 2010 participated in the ratio of 1:1:3. The program aims were explained through an open house meeting, for reinforcement, and another meeting was conducted 5 months later. At year-end, a feedback questionnaire was administered (response rate: faculty, 28 [54%]; mentees, 74 [50%]).Results:Many respondent faculty (27, 96%) and mentees (65, 88%) believed that near-peer mentoring was useful. Compared to the preceding year, the proportion of meetings between faculty mentors and mentees increased from 4.0±5.2 to 7.4±8.8; mentees who reported benefit increased from 23/78 (33%) to 34/74 (46%). Benefits resulted from mentors’ and near-peers’ demonstration of concern/support/interaction/counseling (35, 47.3% mentees); 23 mentees (82%) wanted to become near-peers themselves.Conclusion:Near-peer mentoring supplements faculty mentoring of first-year medical students by increasing system effectiveness.

A scoping review of mentor training programs in medicine between 1990 and 2017

“…These gaps are attributed to differences in the understanding, practice, goals and context of mentoring in medical education, unique curricula, diverse mentee and mentor populations, and distinctive healthcare and education systems [1,[3][4][5][6]51]. Mistaken intermixing of peer, near-peer, group, mosaic, patient, family, youth, leadership, and novice mentoring which display distinct features, roles and approaches and their conflation with supervision, role modelling, coaching, advising, networking and/or sponsorship in many mentoring studies [52,53] calls into question prevailing understanding of mentoring practice and how it influences mentor training [4,46,[54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67]. Concurrently, failure to circumnavigate the restrictions posed by mentorings' evolving, adaptive, goal-specific, context-sensitive, and mentee-, mentor-, relationship-, and host organizationdependent nature (mentoring's nature) that limits scrutiny of mentoring programs to those with similar healthcare, educational and clinical settings and congruous mentor and mentee populations has compounded the situation [1,[3][4][5][6]51].…”

Development of a systematic career coaching program for medical students

“…This means that one should be accessible to (that is, easy to meet with) the students when needed; should have the capability of fulfilling the responsibilities of such a position, with adequate experience in the field; and should have the passion and desire to be involved in the program. Also, consideration should be given to selecting peer mentors rather than senior professors, which may provide students easier access [ 29 , 30 ].…”

Diabetes ongoing sustainable care and treatment (DOST): A strategy for informational deliverance through visual dynamic modules sustained by near peer mentoring

“…[24] A near-peer mentor is supposed to be good in academics, communication skills and endowed with leadership skills. [25] The same traits in a diabetic near-peer mentor (where academics can be replaced by informational richness) may enable him to assist actively the newcomer (newly diagnosed) to achieve his personal glycemic goal. This relationship has a bidirectional implication.…”