NURSING

Mentor Preparation

Mentor Preparation

Section 1

a) Practice Placement of Work

Through this section, I will discuss my practice placement which provides insights in evaluating where I have worked. This will be discussed by analyzing areas of strengths and developments of practice placement where I have worked with the help evidence based literature which could help practice placement effectiveness towards persistent learning environment. Learning clinical environment is the one of the emerging concepts of healthcare settings. To contribute towards its growth and development, every healthcare professional including doctor, clinicians and nurses have been asked to analyze their respective practice placement strengths and possible areas of developments and improvements which could help contribute practice placement as effective for learning environment (Koh, 2002). Nurses as the largest body of healthcare professionals in healthcare industry have ultimate responsibilities to carry out this evaluation during their career (Hutchings, Williamson & Humphreys, 2005). This would not only help professional nurses to enhance their competencies and skills as mentors but also bring more confidence to people who need healthcare where they are serving.

To achieve this objective, I would evaluate my practice placement where I have worked as band-5 staff nurse. I was providing my nursing services in the Acute Medical ward. A mentor is someone who guides and helps others to learn in learning environment. As nurse, I have equal responsibilities to contribute towards understanding and conceptualization of mentorship in nursing which could help me to teach my students not just as teacher but as mentor. Nothing illustrates this better than NMC (2005a) definition towards nurse which states that a mentor is not just nurse, but she is also midwife nurse and community healthcare nurse which help students and people around to learn in learning environment.

To ensure that learning and assessment of practice placement is supported with their respective set levels, NMC have guided mentor nurses to comply with eight domains which sets the criteria of standards, information of assessment in practice and competences and outcomes for nurses to become mentors (NMC 2008b, Ali and Panther, 2008). The ward where I work I would consider leadership and establishing effective working relationships to be more important from eight domains. This is because these two domains are of particular importance in nurse mentoring as supported by various authors. With establishment of an effective working relationship, I would be able develop more strong relationship with families to deliver high quality patient care. Further, establishment of an effective working relationship improved my role as nurse with other healthcare professionals and also helps me to improve the student experiences and competencies. On the other hand, leadership has strong influence among 8 domains in my practice placement which contributed me to experience working with difficult families, participative leadership role across the hospital and also help to remain assertive when situation demands. The purpose of leadership in mentoring nurse also requires to be advocate for patients who are underserved with medical amenities across the country. This indicates that both leadership and establishing effective relationship are ...