Mentorship in Nursing
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Mentorship in Nursing
Mentorship is a critical practice that underpins successful career and professional development. It is outstanding in nursing. Mentorship is an essential component of leadership because it revolves around stimulating aspiration, providing core directions and guidance in a given practice area. Mentorship permeates many aspects of nursing, including nursing education and practice. Nursing practice is increasingly a complex field made of intertwining systems. It entails collaboration, partnership, and coordination of care at various healthcare settings. The contemporary nursing practice is quite broad because it involves a holistic approach to care that considers physical and psychosocial wellbeing. Thus, nursing care demands well-trained and competent professionals who can precisely meet patients’ needs. Both clinical nursing and education require mentorship to ensure that nurses get proper directions on skill development and career progression. Nursing educators and leaders often provide mentorship programs. This paper will focus on mentorship in nursing by experience core competencies and application in nursing leadership and quality improvement in healthcare.
A nurse mentor demonstrates willingness and commitment in helping nursing trainees or practitioners develop and grow in nursing g practice. Nursing mentors often share knowledge, experience, and skills through formal and informal approaches. Hafsteinsdóttir et al. (2020) described mentorship as a relationship between two people, where the mentor is usually more senior and interested in developing the mentee's skills, knowledge, experience, and expertise. A mentor builds a relationship with the mentee, which supports the mentee's professional and personal development by sharing their experiences, influence, or expertise. Mentoring in nursing is extensive: it entails role-modeling, career enhancement and progression, building a professional network, enhancing competence, improving self‐esteem and confidence, and providing emotional and psychological support (Hafsteinsdóttir et al., 2020).
Mentorship is a practice aligned with leadership theories and practice. Leadership theories such as participative and transformational (Xu,2017) are well infused into mentorship programs in nursing. Mentorship is about producing competent front life staff and nursing leaders who are agents of change or transformative. It also encourages active participation that allows mentees to actively participate in patient care, coordination of care, advocacy, and policymaking.
Mentorship in nursing comes with many benefits. Nurse stand to get guidance, solve challenges and problems, access emotional support, build confidence and self-esteem, and access career guidance and directions from mentorship programs. Contemporary evidence supports the use of mentoring to address prevailing gaps in individual nurse support, and its trickle-down effects include improved job satisfaction, enhanced nursing education skills, promotion of collegiality and team building, and improved academic and better clinical performances (Matin,2017). The relevance and importance of mentorship transcend al...