Yes, and: Leveraging peer-led professional development support as a bridge between the status quo and senior faculty-led efforts.

Abstract

Hospital medicine is a young and rapidly growing specialty. As such, most hospital medicine groups have many junior faculty with proportionately few senior faculty to support their career growth through traditional dyadic mentorship. As an alternative that may be more feasible in practice, we propose the development and expansion of peer-led efforts, in tandem with training efforts from organizations such as the Society of Hospital Medicine. In addition to logistical advantages, these approaches bring numerous benefits compared with traditional mentoring: potential for greater psychological safety and reciprocal social support, and opportunities to build career-long relationships. We believe that there are substantial opportunities for innovation and for scholarship to evaluate the impact and outcomes of peer mentorship efforts. We suggest several avenues for advancing peer mentorship within hospital medicine at the national, regional, local, and institutional levels.