Teaching is an essential skill for future doctors. Peer-assisted learning (PAL)-where students take up a teaching role at an early stage of their training-is widely used in medical curricula. No studies have explored the long-term perceived impact of peer teaching. Therefore, we aimed to determine how former peer teachers reflected on PAL and its perceived long-term impact. In this longitudinal descriptive study, we conducted 42 semi-structured interviews with 11 former peer teachers at the University of Antwerp. Five of them were interviewed 6 months after PAL; 6 of them 9 years after PAL. This latter group was also interviewed during PAL in a previous study. We conducted secondary analyses of previously collected interviews, consistently comparing the findings with new data gathered from the current interviews. Using realist thematic analysis, topic summary themes were generated. Former peer teachers reflected on their PAL experience with a lot of satisfaction. Those meanwhile working as residents are still passionate about teaching. Peer teachers experienced a gain in clinical examination- and professional skills in the long-term, facilitating a smoother transition to their internship. Our findings suggest that PAL selects diverse but committed students. The longitudinal data demonstrate how PAL initiates or stimulates different skills in diverse students, including public speaking, teaching, time management, and self-efficacy in specific clinical skills. Regarding the chicken-and-egg question, our study encompasses both longitudinal cases illustrating the pre-existing skill theory and cases demonstrating how achieved competences were induced by PAL. Former peer teachers experienced long-term benefits of PAL, which eased their transition into the internship. PAL has the potential to ignite a lasting passion for teaching, providing diverse and unique learning opportunities not only for the most talented and 'pre-selected' medical students but also for a range of dedicated future clinicians.

Keywords: Peer teaching; internship; interviewing study; maturity; medical student; resident as teacher; skills training.

教学是未来医生的一项重要技能。同伴辅助学习（Peer-Assisted Learning，PAL）是指学生在其培训早期阶段就承担起教学角色，在医学课程中被广泛使用。没有研究探讨过同伴教学的长期感知影响。因此，我们旨在确定前任同伴教师如何反思PAL及其所认为的长期影响。在这项纵向描述性研究中，我们在安特卫普大学对11名前任同伴教师进行了42次半结构化访谈。其中五人在PAL后的6个月接受了采访；六人则在PAL后9年接受了一次采访，在此之前的研究中他们也曾在进行PAL时被采访过。我们对先前收集的访谈进行了二次分析，并始终将这些发现与从当前新数据中得出的结果进行比较。采用现实主义主题分析法生成了话题总结主题。前任同伴教师对其PAL经历表示非常满意。那些目前作为实习医生工作的人员仍然热衷于教学。长期来看，同伴教师在临床检查技能和专业技能方面有所提升，这有助于他们更顺利地过渡到实习阶段。我们的研究结果表明，PAL选拔出了多样但有承诺精神的学生。纵向数据展示了如何通过PAL激发或刺激不同学生的各种技能，包括公开演讲、教学、时间管理以及特定临床技能的自我效能感。关于“先有鸡还是先有蛋”的问题，本研究表明了既有的技能理论和由于PAL获得能力的情况。前任同伴教师体验到了长期的PAL好处，这使他们更容易过渡到实习阶段。PAL有能力激发一种持久的教学热情，为包括最才华横溢且“预选”医学学生在内的各种敬业未来临床医生提供多样且独特的学习机会。

关键词： 同伴教学；实习；访谈研究；成熟度；医学生；住院医师教师；技能训练。