Setting up and maintaining a dedicated student-led peer-assisted learning society: our experience and recommendations

This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. Peer-assisted learning (PAL) is becoming increasingly popular within medical education, reflected by the amount of literature on the subject. There are numerous benefits of PAL for both teachers, students and faculty. At Lancaster Medical School, we decided to first investigate whether students wanted a student-led PAL society. Following the results, we set up the Lancaster University Peer-Assisted Learning Society (LUPALS) in 2013. Since its foundation, LUPALS has successfully provided over 100 teaching sessions to medical students at Lancaster Medical School. We have highlighted the important aspects of setting up our PAL society with reference to the evidence base and provided recommendations for others who are considering creating their own PAL society at their institution. We conclude that setting up LUPALS has been a successful venture and should act as encouragement for others who wish to do the same.