The program will match participants based on criteria such as specialty area, practice setting, and practice function. To help the process along, the ASHP plans to sponsor workshops on improving mentoring skills. The mentoring program requires a yearlong commitment from participants. Developing a mentoring relationship on the job may be difficult because of a lack of time or an inability to find a willing, experienced clinician. So some of our senior persons who had the age and wisdom to be mentors are no longer in those environments.
Downsized staffs are often busy treating patients, leaving little time for anything else.
Because of our fast-paced, high stress profession, we don't get the chance to form mentoring relationships like our predecessors did. So Phelps, Linda Anderson, RN, and Carraway are developing an online mentoring program to match student nurses with experienced nurses who want to mentor via the Internet. The mentoring program is in the planning stage. We have quite a few nurses willing to mentor. I have been helping him since September when he started his senior year.