Nursing student and faculty perspectives following involvement in women, children, family scholars pilot program

Abstract

Background: Mentoring by experienced faculty can provide opportunities for nursing students to grow personally and professionally in their pursuit of establishing a clinical specialty focus. At a Midwest pre-licensure nursing (pre-licensure clinical nurse leader) program, faculty sought to assist students in pursuing knowledge and experiences within the Women, Children, and Family Nursing (WCFN) specialty.

Methods: After completing an application process, selected scholars were matched with a faculty mentor to discuss student objectives/goals, project work, and engage in post-program employment opportunities conversations. At program end, both scholar and mentor completed satisfaction surveys.

Results: Surveys revealed the WCFN scholar pilot program proved beneficial for both student scholar and faculty mentor. Small program changes would improve the scholar experiences.

Conclusions: A WCFN Scholar program provides nursing students’ access to experienced faculty mentors who provide encouragement, assist with problem solving, and offer professional development advice, and networking. Faculty mentors reported personal satisfaction knowing they were supporting new nurse development in the WCFN specialty.