The Mentorship and Development: Build Nurses their Practical Skills - Essay Example

Introduction Placing a nursing in an appropriate environment which is duly supported by effective supervision is an important element of helping students to develop their skills and abilities. Clinical placements are considered as essential element of helping nurse students to develop their practical skills and it largely depends upon the quality of the mentors being provided to them while they are on their clinical placements. The quality of the support provided by the mentors and how they manage this mentorship period to help students to develop a sense of practical skills and blend them with their education can therefore make a great difference in the overall career progression of a nurse student. (Bulman, and Schutz, 2013) To help build nurses their practical skills, it becomes the responsibility of the participating institutions to actually prepare nurses to be ready for the more complex and relatively emerging new practices and technologies to deliver high quality care to patients. This therefore requires a commitment to deploy good mentors. This renewed focus on the mentorship and developing a student’s practical focus and skills is getting a further boost due to the politically advanced argument of providing quality care to the customers. It therefore becomes increasingly important that mentorship shall be integrated into the overall nursing studies to help build the practical skills for students. However, the overall relationship between student and mentor can experience practical issues including fairness, equity assessment and other related matters. (Kilgallon, and Thompson, 2012) This paper will discuss how a mentor can actually develop an effective mentoring relationship with a 1st year student, develop the overall objectives and criteria and assess the overall progress made during a 4 week mentorship program. Mentorship and Student Before discussing as to how to start the process of mentoring and sit with the student to develop the overall objectives, assessments and grading, it is important to first discuss and develop a better understanding of the overall process of mentoring within nursing settings. A mentor is considered as someone who actually offers and advice encourages and offers directions to someone who is either novice or new in any field. As such, a mentor actually has to offer advice and set the future course of action for a learner and it is because of this reason, it is suggested that a classic mentorship relationship develops over a longer period of time and may take between 2 to 5 years. During this mentorship period it can also offer the emotional support to both the individuals involved besides imparting professional knowledge. What is important to note however, is also the fact that mentorship requires a willingness to work and impart advice without actually any financial gain expectations from both sides? (Elock, and Sharples, 2011) It is therefore critical that in order to develop an effective mentorship relationship even for a brief period of four weeks that both the learner and the mentor must be aware of what their roles are and how they need to act and behave in these roles to make the overall mentorship process more effective and efficient.( Hughes, and Quinn, 2013) Effective working relationship In order to develop an effective working relationship during the mentorship it is important that it must be supportive and developmental. Before a mentor can actually interview the mentee and set the objectives for her, it is important that the developmental and supportive aspects of the mentorship are defined clearly with added elements of the mutual trust and relationship between both the individuals. Various research studies have clearly identified that a mentor’s own qualities, attitudes and skills are important to develop an effective working relationship. The overall working relationship, as it evolves over a period of time, therefore is a focused and complex process wherein the commitment from both the individuals is of critical importance. It is therefore critical that before a mentor actually starts to sit and set the objectives and working modalities of the mentorship, she must have the ability to foster the empowerment in the students which can help them to build their practice skills and face the practical realities in more effective manner. ( Rose, and Best, 2005) It is also critical to understand that 1st year students often come with a varied and diverse real life experiences and this can actually pose a challenge for the mentors to reconcile the personal beliefs and experiences with that of the practical realities and help students to evolve and develop into a better and effective practioners who can further develop their skills and pass on the same to down the line to help build a sustainable working relationships within their own working environment. (Gopee, 2011) Initial Interview While setting the scene through literature discussion on how the mentorship relationship starts and what needs to be done in order to make it more effective, the first or the initial interview set the overall tone and the future course of action between the mentor and the mentee during this four week period. It is critical to note that during the initial interview, a mentor must have to make an impression on the mentee and create strong feelings in the student to model her. The initial interview therefore serves as a starting point to make sure that mentor gets the respect and generate positive feelings during the first encounter with the student. What is however, also critical to note that for a shorter period mentorship where students are assigned to different clinical areas for shorter period of time, it may not be entirely possible to leave a positive impact on the student during the initial phase of the mentorship program. The brief period of four weeks therefore may not be sufficient enough to develop the required level of rapport. The initial interview therefore besides setting the overall objective and progress for the next four weeks also needed to be used as an opportunity to create the required level of rapport and was actually developed through an active listening of what student is actually planning to do and how she wants to progress to actually develop a better understanding of future planning and career progression of the student. During the first interview, it was mutually decided what is being expected from the student in terms of her overall learning objectives, setting of the learning objectives, how the same will be achieved along with defining the overall working modalities. The overall schedule of the meetings was clearly advised to the student along with the advice that the scheduled meetings need to be productive and what was to be expected from the student on the next reviews and meetings. It is also critical to note that during the initial phase, student was clearly informed about the fact that mentorship and coaching are two different concepts. Since mentoring has implications which are beyond work, therefore, the student was clearly informed that besides developing task oriented expectations, it is also critical to clearly integrate the developmental aspect in this overall brief mentoring period. (Elock, and Sharples, 2011) Outlining the standards to meet and the requirements to be achieved to practice as a registered nurse was also highlighted in the interview. For a registered nurse to practice, it is critically important that certain standards are met therefore in order to achieve the same; nurses must be prepared in advance in order to help make a smooth transition towards the practice. The initial interview and discussion session therefore highlighted the standards to be followed, how to get the required material for following the same, how the overall feedback system will work to obtain student understands of the ethics and standards besides sharing other general information.( Kinnell, and Hughes, 2010) Mid Term Interview Once the initial objectives are highlighted and are made clear to the students, the midterm review after two weeks period was completed. It is critical to note that midterm interview was also an opportunity to assess the overall performance of the student and how she has been able to follow what has been discussed during the initial interview. One of the first things to discuss was the rotas and the placement of the candidate and how the same has been followed. The routine checks were made to verify as to whether the same were followed or not. At the time of initial interview, it was decided that almost 40% of the student’s time will be spent with the mentor. During this time, different issues of practical concerns regarding learning outcomes to be achieved, implementation of theoretical knowledge in practice, working with the colleagues and peers as well as delivering high quality care to the customers. Since, evidence based nursing is emerging as one of the important disciplines to follow therefore assessment also included as to how the student can actually integrate the evidence based nursing into practice and how it can be integrated on the holistic level for delivering high quality care. (Stuart, 2007) During the midterm interview, it was made clear to the student to offer her own comments and observations on the overall process. Encouraging students to actually self assess themselves help them to build better skills besides developing a sense of self-accountability and self-improvement. Since the ultimate aim of any mentorship is to help students to become self-sufficient, it is therefore clear that midterm review was focused on first highlighting the instances where student was able to self-assess herself and what were her direct experiences while doing the practice. During the midterm review practice placement issues were discussed and the initial response from the student was obtained. Since practice placement issues are critical, it was therefore important that student was aware of the practical issues related with practice placement. This was also important due to the fact that providing effective and integrating task oriented training is the responsibility of all involved in the healthcare set up. It therefore becomes increasingly important that the feedback about others is also sought so that an overall improvement in the system can be achieved and new and improved processes can be implemented to improve the overall quality. (Levett-Jones, Lathlean, Higgins, and McMillan, 2009) During the interview, it was also discussed that the feedback and appraisal from other members of the staff was also taken for the students. This feedback was discussed with the student and the overall assessment was presented as to what others are thinking as the overall performance of the student. The intermediate interview was closed on the high note for recognizing the overall efforts made by the student so far. Student was appreciated along with an advice to further improve different points which can help student to further improve her practical skills and ability to actually make a greater impact on the career. Final Interview The final interview served as one of the important steps towards informing the candidate about the mistakes made. One of the mistakes made by the student was that of a drug error which was discussed with the candidate with open mind. Since final interview also serve as one of the steps to help a candidate to self-assess herself, it was therefore important that the student must realize as to how self-assessment can actually be done where practical mistakes are being made while delivering the overall services. It is important to note that for a mentor to provide relevant and honest feedback to the student, it is critical that mistakes are being highlighted. A mentor should not be afraid of highlighting the failures to the candidates and the same must be shared in order to help candidates to better evaluate their failures and mistakes. It is also a mentor’s responsibility to tell the student as if she is failing or not as identifying this at the early stage can help a student to better improve themselves. (Bastable, et al, 2011) Final interview also highlighted where the student failed to respond in constructive manner to the positive feedback while at the same time highlighting the positive points of the candidates. The final interview was concluded with a thank you note and an assurance was provided to the candidate to approach the mentor at any time in future regarding any professional issues. Candidate also thanked the mentor and promised to improve on the weaker ideas identified during discussion. Conclusion Placing a nursing student in an appropriate environment which is duly supported by effective supervision is an important element of helping students to develop their skills and abilities. Clinical placements are considered as essential element of helping nurse students to develop their practical skills and it largely depends upon the quality of the mentors being provided to them while they are on their clinical placements. During the four week period, a simple mentorship program was implemented and discussed to help student to improve her understanding of the practical matters. The initial interview was set up to help candidate identify the overall objectives to be achieved, assessment criteria, rotas to be followed, peer and colleague feedback as well as how the overall mistakes and weaknesses will be improved and corrected. The final interview was concluded with a thank you note and an assurance was provided to the candidate to approach the mentor at any time in future regarding any professional issues. Candidate also thanked the mentor and promised to improve on the weaker ideas identified during discussion. References Bastable, S., Gramet, P., Jacobs, K., Sopczyk, D. (2011) Health professional as educator: principles of teaching and learning. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers. Bulman, C. and Schutz, S. (2013) Reflective practice in nursing. 5th ed. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.  Elock, K. and Sharples, K. (2011) A nurses survival guide to mentoring. London: Churchill Livingston Elsevier. Gaberson K and Oermann M (2010) Clinical teaching strategies for nursing. 2nd ed. New York: Springer. Kinnell, D. and Hughes, P. (2010) Mentoring nursing and healthcare students. London: Sage.  Levett-Jones, T., Lathlean, J., Higgins, I. and McMillan, M. (2009) Staff-student relationships and their impact on nursing students belongingness and learning. Journal of Advanced Nursing. 65 (2), pp. 316-324. Gopee, N. (2011) Mentoring and supervision in healthcare. 2nd ed. London: Sage. Hughes, S. and Quinn, F.M. (2013) Quinna’s principles and practice of nurse education. 6th ed. Cheltenham: Cengage Learning. Kilgallon, K. and Thompson, J. (2012) Mentoring in nursing and healthcare: a practical approach. Oxford: Wiley- Blackwell. Rose, M. and Best, D. (eds.) (2005) Transforming practice through clinical education, professional supervision and mentoring. Edinburgh: Elsevier Churchill Livingstone.  Stuart C.C. (2007) Assessment, supervision and support in clinical practice. London: Churchill Livingston.  Read More