Clinical Adjunct Nursing Faculty Virtual Mentoring Experience:A Qualitative Study

Nursing and nursing education have been surrounded by discussions of shortages for many years. The United States lacks qualified nurses to care for its aging and increasing acutely ill population. The lack of qualified nurses stems back to several issues, at the forefront, a lack of qualified nurse educators. Due to the demand for skilled and competent nursing faculty, schools of nursing have been utilizing bedside nurses to teach in the clinical setting. While many are experienced bedside nurses, they may not be formally prepared to teach students. Clinical adjunct nursing faculty are also unique because they may never step foot on a college or school of nursing campus, teaching exclusively at the clinical site. This can lead to feelings of stress and lack of support from the other faculty members. It may also make it difficult to help prepare and guide clinical adjunct faculty as they teach and encounter educational issues without proper training. Mentoring is routinely cited as valuable to new faculty transitioning to the education role. The purpose of this study was to explore a new trend in mentoring, virtual mentoring, and determine if it is of value to clinical adjunct nursing faculty. Guided by a basic qualitative research design, eleven clinical adjunct faculty who have experienced virtual mentoring were interviewed in order to gather their perspective of the process and formulate interventions that may enhance the virtual mentoring process for this faculty population.

Mentoring Clinical Adjunct Nursing Faculty

Mentoring is a recognized means of enlisting and retaining employees in a profession. Expert nursing clinicians often begin in an educator’s role as adjunct faculty, at remote clinical settings that could deprive them of information critical for a successful start. Their job satisfaction may be threatened by unclear expectations of administrators. Novice nursing faculty can benefit from being part of a well-thought-out mentoring program. This review of the literature on mentoring of clinical adjunct faculty reveals that there is a minimal amount of information on their specific needs. The literature available identifies the benefits and vital components of a mentoring program. Use of these strategic methods to initiate a mentoring program could facilitate new initiatives for clinical adjunct nursing faculty success.