The Mentoring Process in Professional Nursing - Research Paper Example

? The Mentoring Process in Professional Nursing The Mentoring Process in Professional Nursing Introduction The profession of nursing has experienced a tremendous amount of increase in the number of teachers for the profession who are employed on full time as well as part time basis. On the other hand the profession has experienced a decline in the number of teaching professionals who were prepared to teach nursing on the master’s and the PHD level because a very huge number of these professionals have obtained retirement or have found high paying jobs. Those educationists who gained formal education to conduct the role of educating nursing students are experiencing various problems. Those who have attained the role of being a faculty member in the profession of nursing are expected to figure out complex issues experienced by the system of health care and to help graduates prepare for being able to analyze and make decisions for situations that are novel to them and these faculty members are even responsible for making the students ready to accept and facilitate change. These members of the faculty are even required to take the role of researchers, promote the profession and even provide their services to the institutions and health care settings they are associated with. A nurse educator has to fit in various roles and the nurse educators are not ready to provide services for all these roles and it is becoming really hard for them to balance their career and their lives in such complex situations. Body The concept of mentoring is a renowned one and used in almost every field to aid individuals to adapt new roles with the assistance of socialization. The conventional relationship between a mentor and his protege used to be of a kind in which the mentor used to provide the pathway and the guidance to the protege and the protege used to follow those methods and guidelines to learn, the relationship between these two individuals used to be supportive in nature. Roche states that those individuals who are able to learn through this method experience great success in career and at a very early age they start working at the management level of the organization. This type of relation ship is very renowned but this type of relationship is not the only relationship that exists between a mentor and mentee. Other methods of mentoring include peer mentoring, where nursing faculty who are at the same stage of their career and work at the same hierarchical level, use their information to assist each other (Grossman, 2012, p.16). Another method of mentoring is recognized as Co-mentoring, in this kind of mentoring program, the teacher and the student both participate equally; the teacher conducts the job of teaching as well as listening (Grossman, 2012, p.16). These two mentoring processes rely heavily on communication and empowering of student and teacher. According to Boice, the new members of the faculty of the profession of nursing experience diminished support from the peer members and this support helps them in eliminating the feeling of isolation they experience in their everyday lives (Utley, 2010, p.338). Boice further states that co-mentoring and peer mentoring are mentoring techniques that does not only benefit the new members of the faculty; it even benefits the experienced ones (Utley, 2010, p.338). The involvement of the new faculty members to the mentoring process is of high benefits because these members bring in new ideas and challenges that the experienced ones might be unaware of. The process of peer mentoring recognizes the fact that even the newer members of the faculty have a lot of information and experience to share and when they participate they feel important and are able to address their issues (Jokelainen, 2011). All the three models of mentoring, collaborative, peer and traditional mentoring process are of great value and none of them can be recognized as obsolete. The base of any mentoring process is communication with other faculty members and sharing of ideas and challenges. Process of mentoring in nursing takes place throughout the circle of career of a nurse and faculty members of this profession (Kuwabara, 2009). New members of the faculty who have just joined the profession as well as any institution should be provided with mentoring support during their orientation period (Vance, 1998, p.138). During orientation program, they should be informed about the important and critical resources, an over view of the teachings of a program, an overview of benefits that will be received through the job and an overview of how the cultural and political setting of the organization. The most important element of the entire orientation process is assigning of a mentor to a new faculty member; this mentor will be assigned with the responsibility of providing answers to the new faculty members questions, provide information about different situations to the member and even provides direct help while the new member practices. The mentor associated with the new member of faculty should be easily accessible to the member and the member should perceive him/her as supportive and caring. The challenge is that one mentor can only teach through his or her own personal experience, so it is the job of other faculty members to equally participate in the mentoring of the new member. When the faculty member reaches in the middle stages of his/her career, the scenario of mentoring changes along, there is no longer a need for mentor and instead no single experienced faculty member provides mentoring services to the faculty member (Grossman, 2012, p.134). During the middle of the career level, mentoring takes the form of the concept that mentoring should take place in both formal and informal ways and during mentoring there should be sharing of information between the faculty member and the mentors. Faculty members who have reached the middle stages of their career are involved in the process of trial and error and they provide solutions to various issues and they develop in the area of providing education within and outside their institutes. They can even obtain assistance from mentors who are situated within and outside of their workplace and these mentors help them in developing teaching skills, curriculum designing ability and leadership. When faculty members reach their late ages of career they become a part of the cycle of mentorship and they start providing mentoring services to other faculty members who are new to the field and they are recognized as experienced members of the faculty and experienced mentors (Grossman, 2012, p.120). At this stage, they adopt the role of identification of possible future leaders who can become mentors in their later stages of career and after identification they develop a mentor protege relationship with these new members of the faculty. When faculty members enter into a mentor and protege relationship they start teaching other new faculty members through their own experience and they involve in learning and development of the mid level faculty members and provide similar services as they were provided during their own new and mid level stage of career. The faculty member is even involved in developing the leadership skills of the new and midlevel faculty members. Conclusion Currently the academic scenario of nursing education is experiencing shortage of faculty members and it is the task of the experienced faculty members to train and retain faculty members to increase the strength of their organization. This aim can be accomplished by the introduction of mentoring programs throughout the career levels of a faculty member. When the faculty member is new, a mentor should be assigned to him, as the faculty member reaches the middle level of his/her career, they can obtain services within and outside the institution and as the faculty member becomes experienced, they are assigned with the task of developing future leaders. References Grossman, S. (2012). Mentoring in nursing: a dynamic and collaborative process (2nd ed.). New York: Springer Pub. Co.. Jokelainen, M., Turunen, H., Tossavainen, K., Jamookeeah, D., & Coco, K. (January 01, 2011). A systematic review of mentoring nursing students in clinical placements. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 20, 1.) Kuwabara, Y., & Johnson, J. (June 01, 2009). Mentorship in the Japanese nursing education community. Asian Nursing Research, 3, 2, 81-89. Utley, R. A. (2010). Theory and research for academic nurse educators application to practice. Sudbury, Mass.: Jones and Bartlett Publishers. Vance, C., & Olson, R. K. (1998). The mentor connection in nursing. New York: Springer Pub. Co.. Read More