title: 5 years of experience with a large-scale mentoring program for medical students.
abstract: In this paper we present our 5-year-experience with a large-scale mentoring program for undergraduate medical students at the Ludwig Maximilians-Universität Munich (LMU). We implemented a two-tiered program with a peer-mentoring concept for preclinical students and a 1:1-mentoring concept for clinical students aided by a fully automated online-based matching algorithm. Approximately 20-30% of each student cohort participates in our voluntary mentoring program. Defining ideal program evaluation strategies, recruiting mentors from beyond the academic environment and accounting for the mentoring network reality remain challenging. We conclude that a two-tiered program is well accepted by students and faculty. In addition the online-based matching seems to be effective for large-scale mentoring programs.
authors.affiliation: Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Department of Neurology, Munich, Germany.
authors.forename: Severin
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pinilla
authors.affiliation: Ludwig Maximilians-Universität Munich, Institut für Didaktik und Ausbildungsforschung in der Medizin, Munich, Germany.
authors.forename: Tanja
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Pander
authors.affiliation: Ludwig Maximilians-Universität Munich, Medizinische Klinik and Poliklinik IV, Munich, Germany.
authors.forename: Philip
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: von der Borch
authors.affiliation: Ludwig Maximilians-Universität Munich, Institut für Didaktik und Ausbildungsforschung in der Medizin, Munich, Germany.
authors.forename: Martin R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Fischer
authors.affiliation: Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Department of Neurology, Munich, Germany.
authors.forename: Konstantinos
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Dimitriadis
mesh_terms: D002321:Career Choice; D002983:Clinical Competence; D003479:Curriculum; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate / Q000458:organization & administration*; D005858:Germany; D008611:Mentors / Q000193:education*; D010379:Peer Group; D010819:Physician's Role; D015397:Program Evaluation
keywords: Mentoring; evaluation; online matching; undergraduate medical students