Establishment of a peer-mentoring program for student pharmacists

Peer mentoring has long been considered useful and vital to leadership development in personal, professional, and academic settings. Pharmacy education can be a demanding process for students, especially when factoring in other obligations, such as pharmacy internships, research projects, and extracurricular activities. The idea of having professional guidance and personal support from a peer mentor is appealing, yet many colleges of pharmacy lack an established peer-mentoring program, perhaps because of a deficiency of resources or an inability to recruit willing participants. Having a peer mentor allows for the development of an informal, comfortable connection rather than a relationship that may be restricted due to formality.1 At our university, student pharmacists from various organizations collaborated to launch the college of pharmacy’s first peer-mentoring program. Students in their third or fourth professional year (PY3 or PY4) were paired with students in their first or second professional year (PY1 or PY2). Participants were asked to complete a personal questionnaire, describing their potential interests in pharmacy, desired practice settings, plans to pursue postgraduate training, and work and leadership experience on and off campus. Mentors and mentees were manually matched based on questionnaire responses. We felt this would be an ideal process, as PY3 and PY4 students are on clinical rotations, have experience working in various fields as pharmacy interns, have interacted with many clinical professors and preceptors, and may have familiarity with research projects, poster presentations, and publications. This knowledge and experience can ideally be passed down to PY1 and PY2 students as they begin to form their educational and networking circles.