Authors
- Nikolina Matić — School of Nursing Vrapče, Zagreb, Croatia — ORCID: 0000-0003-0171-2344
- Alma Matić — University of Zagreb — ORCID: 0000-0003-0888-4560
- Branka Lujić — School of Nursing Vrapče, Zagreb, Croatia — ORCID: 0000-0002-4583-4952
Keywords
mentoring, clinical teaching, nursing
DOI
https://doi.org/10.15836/ccar2022.353Full Text
Mentoring and different mentoring approaches in nursing teaching is a current topic of discussion in nursing pedagogy. Nurse as a clinical mentor/educator is a special field in nursing that is talked about in a context of improving the teaching system. The roles of mentoring the nurses are different, however it often refers to mentoring during the clinical practice as well as mentoring in the process of introducing a new employee to the system of work. Mentoring is a complex process that significantly depends on the mentor’s characteristics. It is recommended that mentors develop skills of active listening, showing enthusiasm, include reflexion towards the mentored topics, as well as personal professional growth. A high level of professional competences along with developed methodical and pedagogical and psychological skills. There is frequently a gap between these requirements in the nursing practice in Croatia. Individuals who work at highly sophisticated positions and carry out a progressive nursing care, do not have competencies of pedagogical methodology acquired. At the same time, the number of vocational teachers without professional competences acquired through long-term clinical work is increasing. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to emphasize the importance of the role that is demanded by mentoring in a clinical environment with the constant need to expand professional and pedagogical competencies, as well as different mentoring approaches in a clinical nursing teaching. Some of these approaches could be eased style, counselor style or prescriptive style while simultaneously describing different mentor’s characteristics, such as researcher, visionary, investor, career advisor etc ( 1 ).