Mentoring Program for Graduate Enrolled Nurses - the Key Components of the Program That Mostly Relate to the Implementation and Guidelines - Coursework Example

ntоring Рrоgrаm fоr Grаduаtе Еnrоllеd Nursеs Name Grade Course Tutor’s Name Date Меntоring Рrоgrаm fоr Grаduаtе Еnrоllеd Nursеs Introduction Mentoring programs are specially formulated to benefit mentees who may be lacking in experience or confidence that may be required in a particular field. It is important that professionalism and competency prevail in organizations dealing with service delivery and other sensitive issues of consumer livelihood. Mentoring programs are therefore designed to ensure that there is a workable relationship between the mentor and the protégé so that the specified goals or objectives are effectively achieved. In medical profession, mentoring is very essential for career growth given the sensitivity of the field. It is common knowledge that the insight gained during class work may not be enough for practice if it is not boosted by expert guidance (Dorrance et al, 2008). Mentoring generally refers to the process in which an experienced and highly regarded member of a profession (mentor) provides advice to a younger and inexperienced member. This process ensures that the mentor helps the mentee to grow his or her career through confidence because of the way he or she is likely to get guidance and implement it using their way rather than emulating the ways of the mentor. There are several importance of a mentoring program as noted by scholars. For instance, it is easy to observe that mentoring promotes career growth, personal development and a mentee’s interest in the particular field of mentorship. This report outlines a mentorship program for graduate enrolled nurses. It is divided into various sections that will address the purpose of such programs, the responsibilities of the concerned parties, the actual process of mentoring, evaluation criteria for the mentoring program and finally a brief conclusion with regards to the whole program. Purpose The purpose of this mentoring program for enrolled nursing graduates is based on the four main goals. First, the program is established to ensure that nursing graduates get the right career counseling programs they need for development of their future career goals. There is need for provision of accessible counseling sessions for the graduates so that various career development requirements are met. As illustrated by Zink et al (2007), the career development program is a process in itself because it is unique to every individual. The program will therefore provide the framework for the facilitation of the career development process. Secondly, the program is aimed at enhancing personal as well as professional growth and excellence. The first step is to ensure that the medical budding nurses have an understanding on why it is important to develop their professional as well as personal portfolio as individuals in the medical field. An appreciation of this important point will be essential for the provision of a wonderful but meaningful experience both for the mentees and the mentors. Perhaps, everyone may be lacking a skill or two during the sessions which when encouraged, they will be able to confidently perform. In addition, graduate nurses may have gone through the nursing curriculum and may think that they are done with the research part of their profession. As a third aim, this program is therefore designed to ensure that graduate nurses get an interest and desire to pursue research and academic work in the field which will be of great benefit to their career as well as professional development. There are critical components such as ethical issues, professional code of conduct and common practice challenges associated with certain conditions of patients that can only be revisited and properly understood through close guidance of accomplished nurses and doctors (Zier et al, 2006). As such, this program is meant to encourage this type of growth for the benefit of graduates. Lastly, this program is channeled towards encouraging interest in specified nursing specialties so that institutions do not have a problem in organizing the nurses. Through a framework of nurse interns attached to specialist areas, the program will ensure that there are adequate personnel who are equitably distributed to perform the noble task of providing medical care to all patients regardless of their condition. The program is also designed with the objective of facilitating succession in leadership. Responsibilities of Participants The mentoring program will involve graduate nurses who are the protégés and the experienced nursing professionals who are mentors in this case. Healthcare organizations are also engaged in terms of facilitating smooth implementation of the program. However, it is down to the two parties, the mentor and the protégé, to ensure that this program runs in accordance with the overall purpose of this project. This section will therefore outline the responsibilities of the mentor and protégé in ensuring that the overall goals of the project are met. The mentor A mentor is in this case will be a professional, diligent and competent nursing individual who has been in practice for a considerable period of time. The program also works on the principle of volunteering and willful service to the upcoming professionals. As a standard principle, mentoring is a free service as compared to other leadership roles like coaching. A mentor will therefore be an individual who is ready to give back to others by committing their time and even resources to be able to bring up other responsible nurses on board. The mentor will therefore have various responsibilities that will majorly concern the professional and personal growth of the protégé assigned to him or her. As a facilitator of the mentoring process, a mentor should be ready to share professional and personal experience as well as encourage the mentee to develop through avoiding the common mistakes in the nursing profession (Levine et al, 2007). As a graduate, each nurse might have come across various stereotypes attached to the profession in which the mentor may take an opportunity to clarify and reassure where possible. The mentor should therefore be able to provide support in the best career development paths through providing challenges and identifying opportunities for the graduate nurse. In addition, a mentor should also be able to provide emotional support through boosting of the nurse’s morale, provision of feedback and pointing out the areas for improvement in an objective manner. The mentor is also responsible for showing direction through pointing out the learning opportunities and beneficial programs that the nurse may pursue to enable them grow professionally and personally. Any ambitious nurse should have a growth plan; the work of his or her mentor will be to provide both long term and short term guidance towards those plans through identification of priorities and adjustments to the initial plan. The mentor will therefore be important for the success of this program. The protégé Also referred to as the mentee, a protégé for the purposes of this program refers to the graduate nurse enrolled in a particular institution or organization. This is an individual who might be lacking in experience because of the shorter period of time they might have been in practice. However, the graduate nurses are qualified individuals who have excelled in their respective nursing studies or are within the process of ensuring that they attain a good career growth path through a continuous learning process. The responsibility of any mentor will be to ensure that they are highly cooperative to the mentor. Through maximum cooperation, the mentor will be motivated to provide the needed input for the overall success of the program (Kosoko-Lasaki et al, 2006). As a mentor, any graduate nurse will be expected to have a commitment in establishing a good relationship with the assigned mentor so that they are able to fully benefit from the program. It is therefore important that a protégé appreciates the whole process of mentoring and has an idea of what they are likely to gain from the program. Feedback is an essential element of the mentoring process and therefore the mentee is also expected to feel free in providing feedback to the mentor as well as being open to feedback given by the mentor concerning their progress from time to time. The Actual Mentoring Process This program has a timeline of a two-year circle which is pegged on the initial goals. The mentoring program is however a continuous process that can be informally escalated to other leaning processes like coaching depending on the relationship developed between the two main parties (mentor and protégé). A program oversight committee will be charged with the overall responsibility of evaluation and implementation. Members of this committee will be experts and experienced nurses not necessarily serving in the organizations implementing the program to ensure transparency. This program will specifically follow a 5 step process as a standard for the two year program. The stages will include enrollment, identification of needs, matching, implementation and lastly, monitoring and evaluation. Enrollment This phase is for the identification of the willing and qualified nurses to assume the mentor roles on one hand and the recruitment of graduate nurses to the program on the other. To begin, the mentors will be indentified first on willing basis as mentioned. However, not all willing mentors will be allowed in the program because of integrity and professional ethics issues that might arise out of their practice records. The main reason for this elimination is to ensure that the protégés are provided with mentors that represent a good image to the nursing profession and not mentors who may negatively influence their students or even mould them to be fraudulent (Macaulay et al, 2007). The mentors must also be available for most part of the schedule so that there are not interruptions when the program is initiated. On the part of the graduates, it is important that they show a commitment towards the program. To avoid cases where non-commitment results in dropping out, the graduates will be interviewed and sign a commitment form apart from the normal application process to the program. The committee will also run a background check on all the applicants to ensure that the right individuals are admitted into the program. Generally, both the mentor and the mentee should be able to fulfill their respective responsibilities as outlined in the responsibilities section. Identification of Needs After the recruitment process, it is important to understand the needs of each individual mentee. Since graduate nurses to be admitted in this project come from different specialties, social backgrounds among others, it is important to identify the needs of each individual. This will be done to the successful applicants through filling personal capabilities and needs form. The committee will consolidate the responses and categorize the needs. Thereafter, all the needs will be prioritized and graduates categorized according to their needs. The next stage is to match the identified needs to the available pool of mentors as illustrated in the following section. Matching Having identified the needs and categorized the protégées, the matching process will therefore proceed. Matching will also take into account factors such as the professional background of the mentors, their places of residence and general practice schedules. The main aim here is to ensure that each graduate gets the right individual in terms of being accessible, relevance to the line of specialization and appreciation of social and cultural background. After matching, the mentors and protégés will be formally introduced so that they are able to acquit themselves even as the mentors get to know the mentees better. To this stage, the time assigned for completion is two months. Implementation The implementation phase is the most important and therefore, will take 21 months out of the whole program. The mentors will take charge of the implementation process through arranging the mentoring sessions with their assigned mentees. The process of mentoring will be conducted on a face to face session. In addition, since feedback is important (Kalet et al, 2007), there will be on the practice monitoring sessions that will lead to end of the month evaluations. Both the mentor and the protégé will also provide feedback on their personal evaluation of the whole process to ensure that there is continuous improvement in the whole process. The mentoring sessions will also employ the use of modern technology like online interaction and videoconferencing. Occasionally, there will be a get together seminar for all participants for the purposes of sharing experiences and addressing the challenges of the whole program. Monitoring and Evaluation As mentioned, there will be a continuous monitoring and feedback process. In addition, the mentors will submit monthly progress reports to the oversight committee. The program has also developed an online feedback and interaction platform for use by the graduate nurses. Among other things, they will be able to share their experiences, make recommendations of program improvement and rate their mentors according to certain criteria attached to the overall project’s purpose. Conclusion This report has outlined the key components of the program that mostly relate to the implementation and guidelines. It however, recognizes that there might be issues dealing with technicality of implementation. As a result, all the participants of the project are expected to provide maximum support and work closely to ensure that the whole program is a success. The success of the whole program will in turn ensure that the nursing fraternity is assured of future leaders and professionals for the betterment of this noble profession. In the spirit of volunteerism, the mentors are therefore to be certified at the end of each program for the purposes of career recognition and development. Bibliography Dorrance KA, et al (2008). An internal medicine interest group research program can improve scholarly productivity of medical students and foster mentoring relationships with internists. Teach Learn Med, 20(2):163-167. Kalet A, et al. (2007). Promoting professionalism through an online Professional Development Portfolio: successes, joys, and frustrations. Acad Med 2007, 82(11):1065-1072. Kosoko-Lasaki O, et al (2006). Mentoring for women and underrepresented minority faculty and students: experience at two institutions of higher education. Journal of Natl Med Assoc, 98(9):1449-1459. Levine AS et al. (2007). In-depth learning: one school's initiatives to foster integration of ethics, values, and the human dimensions of medicine. Acad Med, 82(4):405-409. Macaulay W, et al.(2007). The advisory dean program: a personalized approach to academic and career advising for medical students. Acad Med, 82(7):718-722. Zier K, et al. (2006). Supportive programs increase medical students' research interest and productivity. Journal of Investig Med, 54(4):201-207. Zink BJ, et al. (2007). A comprehensive medical student career development program improves medical student satisfaction with career planning. Teach Learn Med, 19(1):55-60. Read More