Mentors: An Analysis of Roles, Responsibilities and Duties - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages... From this research it is clear that people often believe that politicians need to be extremely careful when planning for the entire population relying on them. The reason of such a belief is the complexity of the nature of issues that politicians deal with. Their decisions not only affect the entire population living under their reign but also influence their life style, living standards and health. The responsibility of people’s life, health and living standards, thus, somehow is associated with the officials of the state. So, one may conclude that the professions which affect the way of living, health and other important issues related to general public are of greater importance as per the ethics principles as well as the requirements of the concept of humanity. The most important professions that should be listed in the list include healthcare. Healthcare profession requires dutiful nature of the professional, his loyalty with the profession, experience, proper knowledge of the issue he is dealing and responsible nature. Hence, the courses related to healthcare field incorporate certain practical experience requirements before registering a person as a healthcare professional i.e. a nurse, a doctor, a surgeon or so on. Mentoring is one of the basic practices which are used to aid learning. The concept of mentoring is no longer a mystery. It has established its roots in almost every field today. Healthcare profession is one of the sorts which have taken great advantages by using mentoring as a prop to support education and learning. Mentoring is strongly incorporated as a regular practice or process of preregistration education curriculums. Policies like 2008 NMC mentor standards & standards of proficiency for pre-registration nursing education provide simple and direct guidelines to understand the role of a mentor, his responsibilities, duties and criteria to be met in order to become an official mentor. There is a line of distinction between a mentor, a lecturer and a tutor (Carnwell et al. 2007). Mentors are required to focus their attention on individual learners, whereas, the other two are more inclined towards fulfilling a cumulative responsibility of assessing and completing the milestones of curriculums and to aid the learning environment. Hence, the distinction lies in the fact that mentors are concerned with the progress of the learners not the learning environments or not to limit their responsibility to fixed course guidelines, curriculums and so on. The standards and policies related to associating a person as a mentor are provided to distinguish it from similar roles. There are certain overlapping responsibilities of the related roles to that of a mentor, yet, the distinguishing characteristics need to be understood to effectively perform the duties of a mentor. The responsibilities of a mentor are redefined by the department of Health (2001) as a health professional who encourages learning, oversees the performance and appraises the learners within a healthcare environment (English National Board for Nursing, Midwifery and health visiting & DoH, 2011). NMC (2008) reasserts the responsibilities of a mentor as professionals who aim at encouraging learning, supervising learners and assessing their performances within a practical healthcare environment (Gopee 2008). A research indicates that a mentor is obligated to nurture the learners, concentrate on their professional development, build a relationship of care with and between them, and act as a role model, teacher, companion, motivator and supporter (Kerry & Mayes, 1995). Billay & Yonge (2004) add three more characteristics to the role of mentor including those defined by Kerry & Mayes (1995). These three additional characteristics are defined as having excellent communication abilities, well-informed in the specified field and being up to date with the doctrine of adult education. Mentor as a Role Model Mentors are supposed to be role models for mentees. Mentoring is the process whereby mentees are ...Download file to see next pagesRead More