mentoring students

Gaining clinical experience is vital for the development of veterinary nursing students’ learning and skill development. Not only do they benefit from learning the technical side of the profession, but the interaction with other nurses and veterinarians, and patients and owners, during the placement helps to cement interpersonal and communication skills.

Successful mentoring is imperative for veterinary nurse clinical competency building, and your role as a mentor is critical to the success of the student.

Mentoring is a relationship-based process where a senior or more experienced person, the ‘mentor’, which is you, guides someone less experienced, the ‘mentee’ – or in our case, the student.

‘Shadowing’ of an experienced worker enables observation of work tasks and tacit knowledge transfer, as well as the ability to request to participate in tasks with guidance. This enables the student to learn new skills and become aware of the knowledge and expertise required of them. On-the-job experience alone is not considered to produce expertise, and proper instruction and engagement with other professionals is required – this is why placement in a real world clinic is so vital to students to really gain the expertise necessary to become a highly competent veterinary nurse.

Mentoring can occur through an informal or structured formal approach. Regardless of the structure, effective mentoring requires the voluntary engagement of both the mentor and student, including shared responsibility and mutual respect, and the relationship must enable the empowerment of the student. Effective mentoring is a skill that must be developed, and to be successful an understanding of the mentorship process, desired characteristics (from the perspective of a mentee) and the various roles a mentor may play is essential. A successful mentoring relationship will finish with the student being competent and confident in the skills or knowledge imparted to them, and equipped for future self-learning to continue their own professional development and work as an autonomous professional.

The role of the mentor will depend on the student’s needs at that time and therefore may change throughout the duration of the mentoring relationship. Whilst there are many roles a mentor may fulfil, they predominantly cover ‘helping-type’ functions along with supportive roles. A mentor should be able to encourage and motivate, assist the student with their own development and confidence in their own abilities through self-reflection, and teach the relevant skills and knowledge necessary for professional and general career development. Your role is not to be the “master” who is dictating to the “apprentice”, these forms of relationships do not lead to successful outcomes, instead your role is to facilitate a two way learning partnership.

Guidance and coaching of the student is of course the primary objective of mentorship and placement but cannot occur without some careful planning and strategizing. The time necessary for mentoring to occur and the mentor-mentee relationship to develop is often cited as a cause of mentorship failure, as both mentors and mentees are often time poor. You will need to make time, through careful time management and planning of your own workload, to ensure you are available to the student not only for direct teaching, but also for open communication pathways and the provision of feedback to enable you to monitor the student without obstructing the learning process. Facilitating the growth and development of new skills requires a mentor to stand back and let the mentee practice and gain confidence, without feeling like they are under constant scrutiny.

In this course, a formal mentorship strategy under the guide of placement/practical skills is utilised for the development of clinical competency. To enrich the clinical experience, students receive the appropriate support, guidance and supervision from their clinical mentors. This is in partnership with the Nurse Educators at ACVN, who instruct the student on the theoretical aspects of nursing and skill mastery. Your overall role is to facilitate the development of the student’s clinical skills and answer your own skills and knowledge. In some cases, you may also be involved in the emotional and social support of the student, especially where the student may be new to the veterinary industry.

More than just your professional knowledge and skill level goes into a successful mentor-mentee relationship. Your attitude and communication skill also plays an important role in the learning process. Keeping positive and encouraging the student to undertake tasks, and fostering open communication and feedback is an essential part of your role. The student should be able to approach you with any question, or feel confident to ask you to show them a new task or skill.

In a dynamic industry such as ours, recommendations are always changing. We teach current best practice to our students to ensure they are as up to date with their skills and knowledge as possible. This may mean that they are taught something a little differently to how you might do it in your clinic, this does not mean that what is being taught or practiced is wrong, simply that there might be something new your entire team can learn about via your student. This is part of the reason that a mentor-mentee relationship is two way. You should look at your role as a Clinical Mentor as professional development for yourself as well as the student.