Near-peer role modeling: the fledgling scholars education paradigm.

Peer-assisted learning as de rigueur is reverberating in medical institutions around the world. Anatomy classroom activities are challenging and different, and the stressful environment of dissection rooms poses a greater challenge than what can be addressed through peer-assisted learning. It is here that "near-peer role modeling" is not only likely to be more useful, both to the students as well as their near-peer teachers, but also holds the answer to the worsening faculty shortage in anatomy education. Copyright 2010 American Association of Anatomists.