Peer Mentor Schemes in Medical School: their need, their value and training for peer mentors

Objectives: To describe the setup, training and evaluation of a novel near peer mentoring programme adopted in the School of Medicine to enable such schemes to be established in UK medical schools and other HE institutions. Methods: 49 second and third year medical student peer mentors were recruited and trained to be mentors for students in years below. The training and results of surveys of the peer mentors are described in this paper to review the effectiveness and appropriateness of the training.Results: The effectiveness of the peer mentoring training programme was rated by the trainees as high with a mean ( standard deviation) session score of 4.37(0.21) following the second training session and 4.33(0.38) following the third training session, out of a possible maximum score of 5. Percentage satisfaction of preparedness was 93.7% (84.9-100%) for the first session and 89.7%(79.1%-100%) for the second session. There was also no statistically significant difference in the mean student perception of learning score comparing both sessions (p0.05).Conclusion: Our results suggest that the training program for our medical student peer mentors effectively equipped them with the confidence, knowledge and skills to support their mentees and to effectively signpost them to the appropriate professional. Additional findings show that our peer mentors themselves have a greater understanding of University processes and procedures which helps them in their own medical school journey