Peer-Mentorship for Clinical Leadership

Nurse educators are challenged to find methods that promote clinical leadership and collaboration in the rapidly changing health care arena.  In an effort to provide senior level nursing student’s opportunities to function in a leadership role, a peer-mentoring program is being implemented.  Hunt and Ellison (2010) define peer mentoring as a relationship between people with varying levels of expertise.   Currently, a peer-mentoring project is being implemented to assist the senior level student with leadership in the areas of communication, collaboration, and coordination of patient care.  Senior level students have been paired with first and second semester faculty to assist with mentoring of lower level students in the clinical setting. 

The clinical instructor defines the peer-mentor’s responsibilities in the various clinical settings guides and provides an overview of the lower level student learning objectives.  Peer-mentor duties include, but are not limited to:  medication preparation, clinical skills, therapeutic communication, supervision, and delegation.  The desired outcome of this project is for the senior student to demonstrate leadership skills, to promote collaboration, facilitate learning, and inspire the lower level nursing student. 

A review of the literature supported the decision to implement this project.  Ford (2015), Rosenau, Lisella, Clancy and Nowell (2015), Zentz, Kurtz, and Alverson (2014), and Hunt and Ellison (2010) all researched the student’s experiences of peer-assisted learning in the clinical or laboratory setting.  And in 2010, Dennison described the potential of peer mentoring.  The literature review revealed a lack of perceptions from nursing faculty regarding the leadership potential of peer mentoring.  This lack of information inspired the notion of a qualitative study on faculty perceptions of peer mentoring as a method to promote leadership and collaboration. 

At the end of the semester, clinical faculty will be individually interviewed on a volunteer basis regarding their experiences with peer mentoring.  Questions regarding effectiveness of the project, senior student preparedness, helpfulness, and potential for future use will be asked.  All questions will be recorded and analyzed for recurring themes. 

As faculty members are encouraged to develop leadership potential and collaboration skills in students, information gathered will examine the peer-mentoring project through the lens of the experienced faculty member.  The lived experience of the clinical nursing faculty will help shape the use of peer-mentors for future semesters.  With this in mind, best practices for the peer-mentors can be developed.