Many graduate programs require experience within the nursing specialty for admission. To allow inclusion in a highly specialized, low enrollment graduate nursing program, a formal mentorship program was developed to allow students with an interest in advanced pediatric nursing the opportunity to be recruited and accepted into the Pediatric Nurse Practitioner (PNP) track at a state university. An integrated review of graduate nurse transition programs suggests good retention and improved competency through the education process with this type of formal mentoring. (Rush, Adamack, Gordon, Lilly & Janke, 2012)
A Student Advisor/Mentorship Program for Pediatrics (STAMPPed) initiative was started in the fall 2018 semester. This program is for entry level nurses, or for those nurses with minimal to no pediatric experience, who hold an interest in advanced Pediatric nursing. These students applied and were accepted to the PNP program, and include new graduates, nurses working in mother/baby units or medical/surgical units who wish to study to be a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner. A formal mentorship model was applied in which the faculty mentor and protégé were assigned to each other for a specified amount of time (Pronsky, 2012), utilizing the School of Nursing mentoring model which was adapted from the NJ ONE Mentoring Toolkit (2014). The students are supported during their first two years in the PNP coursework, providing guidance, sponsorship, and improved feelings of scholastic competence, as the student assimilates to working and/or training in the pediatric nursing specialty. The goal of the program is for the student to gain confidence and knowledge as they progress to the role of the pediatric advanced practice nurse.
Methods:
Students are assigned a faculty mentor who has Pediatric experience. The role of the faculty mentor encourages constructive interaction with a mentor and participation in collective activities he or she arranges, to promote engagement in the field of Pediatrics during coursework and DNP project preparation. Mentors can have the opportunity to work with the student on their DNP topic and have the ability to serve as the chairperson or faculty member on their DNP committee. Meetings are conducted throughout the semester to discuss common topics with role definition as a Registered Nurse and as an emerging advanced practice nurse.
Results:
The program will evaluate overall student outcomes relative to coursework and clinical competence throughout the program, and be compared with students with prior Pediatric experience within the Pediatric Nurse Practitioner program. At the time of this abstract, we are completing year 1 of the mentorship program. By the time of presentation, we will have collected data for almost 2 years within the program.
Conclusion:
This initiative supports the transformation of nursing as it bridges the generational gap between novice and experienced nurses. This type of mentorship program can be easily replicated in other specialties, and allows for inclusion and education of nurses to fulfill their long-term career goals to be a nurse practitioner in a specialty area.