Student evaluations of a year- long mentorship program: A quality improvement initiative

Mentoring is an important teaching-learning process in undergraduate nursing curricula. There are relatively few studies specifically evaluating nursing students’ perceptions of mentorship. In the period 1999 – 2002, thirty-nine students were mentored during a year-long program. This descriptive, exploratory study used a quality improvement framework informed by the Deming Cycle of Plan, Do, Check and Act (Deming 1982) to evaluate the mentorship program from the students’ perspective. Information was gathered through surveys, focus group discussions and interviews and analysed to identify themes of responses. Identified themes were ‘The doing of nursing’, ‘The thinking of nursing’ and ‘Being a nurse’. The study confirmed the value of mentorship in undergraduate nursing and highlighted the importance of skill competence as a basis for professional role identity by graduating students. The benefits of mentorship were derived from a long term, supportive relationship with the same registered nurse who was committed to the student’s professional development.