Mentoring Benefits and Issues for Public Health Nurses

Abstract

New public health nurses (PHNs) move from novice to expert status with enormous expectations from their organization, their peers, and themselves. These expectations lead to stress that may be beyond the level of endurance. Mentoring is an important answer to this problem. Mentoring is the greatest gift PHNs can give to each other, especially for PHNs who self-identified themselves as minority cultural group members. This article describes definitions, roles, benefits, and responsibilities of mentors and mentees and includes mentoring concerns, current and proposed mentoring programs, and mentoring issues for gender and race. Organizational mentoring programs can be created that will facilitate the development of mentoring relationships. These programs help experienced PHNs bridge the gap between the theory and reality of nursing for themselves and inexperienced colleagues.

Mentoring Nurse Practitioners in a Hospital Setting

“…This model is divided into three sections: forming the relationship, developing the relationship, and outcomes. Formal mentoring programs also contain three or four stages, beginning with initiation or recognition and ending with termination and re-alignment or closure and separation (Simpson, 2005;Smith, McAllister, & Crawford, 2001). This model loosely follows the formal mentoring stages, but also contains characteristics of informal mentoring.…”

“…Formal mentoring programs imply matching mentors and mentees based on personal and professional characteristics and interests (Simpson, 2005;Smith, McAllister, & Crawford, 2001;Vance & Olson, 1998). While program coordinators may use a variety of tools to match mentors and mentees, participants' willingness to learn about each other may be more important than the initial matching in ensuring a successful relationship.…”

Mentoring as an Hr Intervention to Engage Gen Y Employees

“…Mentoring literature has connection with Greek mythology, as the term mentor firstly appeared in Homer's famous poem The Odyssey (Kram, 1985;Smith, McAllister, & Crawford, 2001). According to the poem, Mentor was the name of the trusted counselor who cared for Odysseus's son, Telemachus, while Odysseus was away from home.…”

Loss and Grief Experiences of Mentors in Social Work Education

“…Mentors help protégés learn how to assess the inside culture of an organization (Kelly & Post, 1995). They prepare protégés to acquire essential professional knowledge and skills in institutional and/or organizational networking, critical thinking, and career planning (Glass, 2000;Smith, McAllister, & Crawford, 2001). Masters and doctoral students can learn how to improve their teaching and research (Wilson, Valentine, & Pereira, 2002).…”