Josephine Kim, fourth-year medical student, helped to create the peer mentoring program to share the benefit of her experience with third-year medical students. photo by David Christopher
By Susan Chandler
The
Pritzker Medical School has always provided counseling to students
during their third year, a stressful watershed when they move out of
the classroom and into hospitals. Some students may be seeing seriously
ill and dying people for the first time. On top of that, third-years
must decide what area of medicine to specialize in, which determines
where they apply for residency and what kind of physician they end up
being. It’s a lot of pressure.
Much of the career guidance
students receive comes from Pritzker faculty members through formal
advising societies. Two Pritzker students in their fourth year decided
some grass-roots input was needed.
In August, Josephine Kim
and Gautam Malhotra approached Shalini Reddy, MD, associate dean for
student programs and professional development, with an idea. Why not
ask fourth-year students to act as mentors to third years and post
their profiles so the third years could see which students shared their
same career or personal interests?
Reddy gave the go-ahead and so far, more than half of the fourth-year class has signed up to be mentors.
“It
is a fantastic addition,” says Reddy. “Peer mentoring provides
perspective. If you’re talking to someone who has been through what
you’re going through, you take it to heart. I think there’s a need for
connectedness because medical students tend to feel they’re
experiencing everything by themselves. I want them to know they have
each other.”
The issues that concern third-years may run the
gamut from “When can I find time to exercise?” and “What should I eat?”
to “Someone just died. How do I handle it?” Reddy said. If a mentor
senses excessive anxiety or becomes uncomfortable about the student’s
emotional state, they are directed to reach out to a faculty member.
While
a certain amount of stress is normal and perhaps even useful, “We want
to prevent burnout and tone down the anxiety,” she adds. “We don’t want
it to get to the point where students can’t function.”
Kim says
the idea for peer mentoring came to her at the end of her third year
when she was looking for someone to talk to about choosing
obstetrics/gynecology as a specialty. A friend suggested she talk to
another student who turned out to be “unbelievably helpful,” Kim says.
"At times other students who have just gone through similar experiences can be the most helpful resource," she adds. “It’s
always nice to have more senior students to guide you.”
Prospective
mentors were asked to fill out a survey listing their choice of field,
organization memberships, research work and hobbies. That information
is being posted on a Web site where third-years can make their own
choice about whom to contact. “We thought it was best for people to
pick their own prospective mentor,” Kim said.
A separate email hotline also is available for third years to ask general questions.
There’s
a risk, of course, that fourth-year mentors may find themselves busier
than they expect and not be as diligent as hoped about responding to
inquiries. There’s also the chance that the program will fade away
after Kim and Malhotra move on.
But Kim says they won’t let that
happen. “We haven’t laid out the nitty gritty yet but we’ll make sure
it gets passed on. We’ll handle it well in advance.”
