Possibilities and limits of a student-led, near-peer mentoring initiative for first-year dental students.

Mentoring was founded in the shared experience of studying dentistry and allowed mentor-mentee pairs to establish kinship and progress relationships. Kindness acts as an infrastructure to guide interactions; however, underdeveloped kinship may hinder mentoring. Thus, the peer mentoring program researched provides value to mentees and mentors and allows participants to benefit from becoming part of a student-led, professional community.