Nurse Mentorship Programs

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that problems in the hospital environment have created a high turnover among experienced nurses whose jobs are being filled by new graduate nurses, especially for the night shifts where there is the least backup support for these experienced nurses. The author reports that preceptor/residency programs have been developed for new graduate nurses to provide orientation to the specialty areas, such as critical care, medical/surgical and psychiatry and to help these new nurses address the challenges they face in their new positions. The paper indicates that, although there are relatively few articles available on mentorship for graduate nurses, studies do indicate the importance of these orientation programs not only to improve clinical care but also to decrease nursing staff turnover, preceptor burnout and the financial burden such turnover costs the healthcare system.

From the Paper:

"Marcum and West (2004) examined the effect of a structured mentoring program on the retention of nurses within a healthcare system. In this study, twenty new graduate nurses were enrolled in a "New Graduate Orientation Program" which had been developed when the need to retain nurses was identified. The program used for this study marked an entirely new was of thinking for this particular organization, and was managed in a stepwise approach. Management appeared to have significant by-in to the plan. Current staff was polled to identify career goals, performance and support issues. At this point it was identified that the largest pool of nurses from whom the organization would have to choose from would likely be the new graduate population."

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