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Collaboration and successful teamworking are important components of clinical practise, and these skills should be cultivated early in medical school. The breadth of current medical school curricula means that students often have limited exposure to clinical neurosciences. Since its inception in 2009, the Neurology and Neurosurgery Interest Group (NANSIG) has become a national (UK and Republic of Ireland) example of student and junior doctor synergistic collaboration to deliver educational materials, research, conferences, seminars and workshops, as well as advocating for diversity in this field. Recently, it has expanded to incorporate an international audience and cater for a larger group of young medical professionals. The organisation has overcome numerous challenges and is constantly innovating new approaches to harness the necessary knowledge, skills and network to succeed in a career in neurosciences, neurology and neurosurgery. This article summarises the initiatives undertaken by the group over its first 10 years of existence and its organisational structure, as well as its future plans.

Background Student mentoring is an important aspect of undergraduate medical education. While medical schools often assign faculty advisors to medical students as mentors to support their educational experience, it is possible for the students to pursue mentors informally. The possible role of these informal mentors and their interactions with the students in a faculty mentorship program has not been reported. This study builds upon previous work that suggested many students have informal mentors, and that there might be interplay between these two types of mentors. This study was conducted to report the experience of undergraduate medical students in a faculty mentorship program of their faculty mentors and if applicable, of their informal mentors. Methods One month before residency (post-graduate training for Canadians) ranking, the survey was administered to the graduating class of 2014 at the University of Calgary’s Cumming School of Medicine. The survey was created from focus groups of the previous graduating class of 2013. The survey investigated meeting characteristics and the students’ perceptions of faculty advisors and informal mentors, and the students’ intended choice for residency. Results The study response rate was 86 % (95 of 111); 58 % (54 of 93) of the students reported having an informal mentor. There was no reported difference in satisfaction ratings of the Faculty mentorship program between students with only faculty mentors and those with also informal mentors. Students’ reporting of their satisfaction with the Facultymentorship program and the faculty mentors did not differ between the students with informal mentors and those with faculty mentors only. The students’ meeting frequency, discussed topics, and perceived characteristics of faculty mentors were not associated with having an informal mentor. The students generally perceived their informal mentors more positively than their faculty mentors. The reported student career intention was associated with the discipline of informal mentors and not with the discipline of faculty mentors. Conclusions Informal mentorship was common for medical students. The presence of an informal mentor was not associated with dissatisfaction with the Faculty advisor or with the mentorship program. It is likely students may pursue informal mentorship for career-related reasons. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12909-016-0526-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.