When it comes to helping young people succeed, a range of formal and informal mentoring is key.

Not just because of the knowledge and skills students can learn from mentors, but also because mentoring provides professional socialization and personal support.

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But mentoring is not a one-way street reserved for experienced workers handing down their wisdom to those just starting out. People of all ages can benefit from, and provide, mentorship.

Take near-peer mentor relationships, which partner people close in social, professional or age level.

To gauge such relationships’ effect on promoting careers in the health care industry to underrepresented minorities, Adrianne Haggins, M.D., evaluated the Doctors of Tomorrow program, an innovative project that pairs first-year medical school student mentors from the University of Michigan with freshmen from Cass Technical High School in Detroit.

What she found: mutually beneficial relationships with common themes leading to success.

“Beyond looking at mentorship broadly, this study allowed us to look more granularly at why these relationships were successful,” says Haggins. “We were able to capture the high school students’ and medical students’ voices as to why they found the relationships valuable and get both groups’ perspective.”