The PEERS program was founded in the 2016-2017 academic year at ISMMS by Mount Sinai alumni, Jordyn Feingold and Annie Hart. Following the suicide of an ISMMS student, Feingold and Hart– then, a first year and a fourth-year medical student, respectively—were called to respond to the growing crisis of medical student and clinician despair, that was echoing both at home and across the US. This tragedy left our ISMMS community grieving and yearning for interventions to support students and clinicians at all levels of the education-practice continuum.   

Together, Feingold, Hart, and a group of their medical student colleagues along with their faculty mentor, Dr. Asher Simon, with the blessing of medical student leadership, assembled to craft a curriculum aimed at meeting students’ needs during the times of greatest stress throughout medical school and carve out a space to talk about what was going well, and not so well, during training.  

A Need for Supportive Spaces

The idea was first and foremost about providing support to students and showing them that they were not alone in their struggles—be it adjusting to life as a medical student, studying for the boards, failing an exam, or navigating the identity of a medical student among all the other complex identities they each hold.   

A Need for Skills, Not Just Venting

Another critical piece was about teaching skills: introducing emerging doctors to evidence-based approaches from positive psychology that could equip them to better navigate these stressors. Not only that, but the leaders hypothesized that being more oriented to well-being themselves would help trainees to be more attuned to the well-being of their patients. In this vein, the student leaders imagined a program that would transcend merely venting and allow students to leave each session feeling more seen, validated, and with new tools and frameworks they could use throughout their personal and professional lives, including in patient care. 

Getting It Off the Ground

Once the curriculum outline and manuals were drafted, the PEERS program was officially born. Piloted with the class of 2019 when they were MS2s, the program expanded to all medical students in the 2017-2018 school year. At this point, PEERS was nearly entirely student-run and facilitated, with administrative support from the Office of Student Affairs to help with scheduling and space considerations.   

Learn more about how PEERS adapted during the COVID-19 pandemic: https://www.gold-foundation.org/newsroom/blog/icahn-medical-students-create-peers-program-to-foster-resilience-and-community/