Implementation of a near-peer teaching model in pharmacy education: experiences and challenges.

There is an increasing demand for high-quality experiential placements for pharmacy students. As a result, pharmacy schools across Canada are confronted with the need to find innovative ways to expand experiential educational rotations. Near-peer teaching is one model with the potential to address this issue. Near-peer teaching involves the provision of learning support to junior students by their senior peers. This teaching methodology, which is common in many medical education programs, is thought to allow pharmacy students a unique learning environment for integrating pharmacy knowledge into pharmacy practice. It gives the student access to an additional potential learning environment without unduly increasing the preceptor’s workload. Although peer teaching has been well established in many health care communities, this approach has not been widely adopted in pharmacy education. This paper describes the experiences and challenges of this teaching model in pharmacy education within a specialized hospital setting.