Editorial: Medical Students and Postgraduate Trainees as Medical Educators: peer learning is everywhere

Abstract

In this special issue we would like to encourage authors to contribute as many diverse understandings as possible of how learning occurs in situations where the teacher is, as Osler so memorably put it, a senior student anxious to help his or her juniors. So although we expect to see plenty of work on peer assisted learning programmes within clinical skills units or hospitals we would like to invite authors to be creative in their interpretation of what Medical Students and Postgraduate Trainees as Medical Educators means. In particular we'd like to advance the definition to include "teaching and learning with flat hierarchies" - that is to say, teaching and learning that takes place between people who are fairly close in age, experience or stage of learning, as well as teaching and learning that occurs in the 'opposite direction' - such as when seniors are able to learn from juniors. We will be celebrating the remarkable potential of peer teaching and learning with flat hierarchies and look forward to the publication of a variety of articles, including those that would not normally find an outlet elsewhere, such as replication studies, negative findings, pilots and protocols, case reports, narrative studies and reflections.

Keywords

• peer learning