Our goals

Our Goals

- Create a system of simple, accessible and non-judgemental peer mentorship.

- Allow participants to develop essential skills in education, communication and leadership.

- Provide volunteering and leadership opportunities to those willing to be a part of a private non-government organization.

- Develop a portal for free and easily accessible information on key aspects of a career in medicine beyond MBBS, including but not restricted to:

Securing a residency
How to maximize your potential as an MBBS student
Careers in medicine beyond residency
Research methodology

- Provide a platform for students to collaborate and share ideas for research.

- Gradually create a culture of academia within the student community.

Message fom the directors

Our Founders' Messages

Dr. Ashir Mehra

It was the first day of my official medical journey. Years of hard work and dedication had brought me to the brink of being a successful doctor, and I could feel it. I had woken up earlier than necessary that morning to allow for ample time for a humble prayer and a healthy breakfast. As I walked towards our college, I had not quite known what to expect. I entered the lecture hall. Almost everyone was already there, well dressed, hair perfectly done, new books placed in front. None of us knew what to expect, but in that moment, we were proud of where we stood and excited to learn. What was common to most of us was the belief that we could cure anyone.

I wish I could look back at the years in MBBS and say that every single day had begun like this but more often than not, that was not the case. With every passing year, each and everyone of us was reminded of the tremendous difficulty of the course. Long study hours, immense pressure, frequent questioning of our knowledge and almost no immediate reward brought even the strongest and smartest of us to tears. Within a few months of starting MBBS, the passion to learn had been replaced by the desire to just pass. We all began to question whether it was all worth it.

It is during these testing times that we all wished that we had someone to guide us. Someone to tell us more about how to learn efficiently and look beyond an upcoming set of exams. Someone who could help us achieve a better balance between our studying and social life. Someone who could help us explore the different career paths after MBBS. Someone who could help refine our research skills. Someone who could be relied upon to provide us with reliable information on anything that we wanted to explore.

With all this in mind, Dhruv and I have started PeerConnect and ever since its inception we have expanded to create an organization that has the ability to support and guide students in both academic as well as non-academic capacities.

To be specific, PeerConnect brings MBBS students close to the mentor that they have always had difficulty finding. We are a group of people that have successfully made it through the times that the younger medical students are going through, and we are eager to tell them all that we wish we knew.

We all know how difficult the journey is. We are here to provide non judgemental, confidential guidance. Whether it be a desire to do well in an upcoming exam or to lead the student council or even to simply discuss possible career options (including but not limited to numerous residency pathways and specialties.)

We are here to help you make an impact! We care.

Dr. Dhruv Bakshi

No one deserves to persevere through hard times, alone.

As young adults who are finding our way through an ever-expanding professional world, we only gradually start to understand how simply ‘dreaming big’, is scarcely enough. The challenges of the day-to-day hustle to fulfil that dream, are often so large that we find ourselves stuck in disbelief at the odds stacked against our success. With millions of us in the same boat at every step of the process, it seems nearly impossible being the ‘star kid’ or overachiever that we were as children, growing up. This pessimism is often our worst enemy, and we fight each day to move forward.

Does it have to be this difficult?

It doesn’t. As complicated and layered as the world seems to get with each passing year, the solution to our largest problems often lies in the fundamentals of humanity. A significant evolutionary advantage that humans possessed in the primitive years was an instinct to establish a ‘community’ - with the idea that our collective responsibility was the key to see society survive and progress. As tribes, we developed ways to help each other and learnt to collaborate for the collective good. In my opinion, this was the birth of mentorship, which came with the realization that the majority of the solutions to our problems can be found if we helped one another. Moreover, the understanding that members of each tribe often shared similar problems, helped propagate the importance of knowledge exchange and learning from one another.

As young doctors and medical students, we belong to one tribe. It only makes sense to help one another past the challenges the system throws at us.

Mentorship was a critical factor in my MBBS journey. I was fortunate to not only seek mentorship from my friends around me, but also often provide mentorship each time I learned something new. Teaching and learning from each other became commonplace and we grew in a culture where within our tiny circles, we felt empowered. However, a few of us soon realized that the ideology behind this culture of helping one another did not penetrate through the larger student community, both within and outside our wonderful institute. The academic culture among medical students is often driven by a spirit of self-gain, competitive toxicity and sheer dismissal of the needs of those who require more support through the system.

If one can identify a problem, one must strive to change it.

And so, through multiple discussions that Ashir and I had on these structural shortcomings, PeerConnect was born.

We decided to form PeerConnect to provide support to those requiring academic and non-academic help within the existing MBBS structure. Mentorship not only provides a key balance between teaching and learning such that both parties benefit, but it also fits well as the core solution to the problems we are trying to tackle. While the peer mentorship system forms the foundation of our organization, we also wish to provide support in a more holistic manner to each medical student by guiding them through the non-academic side of MBBS, providing information on pathways to residencies worldwide, career options beyond clinical medicine, and overall professional development. All our services are free, accessible, and reliable, and these principles penetrate through all layers of PeerConnect. Along with this, our model also provides an opportunity for medical students to gain professional experience working with a non-profit organization like ours, through our volunteer program.

With time, we aim to foster a sense of community among the growing workforce that our young doctors form. Together, we hope to nurture a culture of exchanging academic support- with each member of the pool receiving the specific help that they require to succeed, without hesitation or fear of judgement. We believe that the drive to become successful doctors of the future should be fuelled by a passion for helping others and remaining uninhibited as we progress through all the challenges that our field has to offer.

PeerConnect is the helping hand you need to walk you through medicine. We welcome you.