Professional Experience Placement

Bourke, Waite and wright (2014) recently published an article to propose a model of mentoring that was suitable for rural and remote health professionals. The authors reviewed 39 mentoring papers to outline important factors in mentoring of professionals working the rural and remote practice. The authors identified four models of mentoring. These were cloning, nurturing, friend ship and apprenticeship models.

The authors discuss the origins of mentoring and the current definitions and value of  the relationship to mentors and mentees. They reported that participants of mentoring programs indicated that there can be high levels of satisfaction, career success, collaboration and career advancement.  They note there are advantages for both mentors and  mentees. Invigoration of enthusiasm by mentors, professional satisfaction and exposure to new opportunities and ideas can occur. Bourne, Waite and wright  (2014) also noted there were negative outcomes that included increased workloads, potential for patronization, conflict and relationship matching that may not be effective.

The authors discuss the four models. They highlight the value of the models that a likely to work for health professionals depending on their role and function, individual needs and career stage. It was noted that students were likely to benefit from an apprentice model, while new health professionals could benefit from a nurturing approach. Interestingly, technology mediated interactions were found to improve mentoring compared with face to face interactions due to better transfer of honest feedback, development of trust and role modelling.

The paper also discusses the potential barriers to successful mentoring and concludes that further research into supporting the rural workforce and evaluation of mentoring models is a way forward.

The implications of this paper for clinical supervision are mainly directed to clinical supervisors and students who work in rural or remote practice, but can also include those who supervise solo. Naturally, I am interested in the prospect of encouraging clinical supervision mentorship and the mentoring of students that could be improved by collaboration or sharing of information through the use of digital technology such as this blog and the @PEPCommunity micro blog. The concept of sharing ideas, seeking and receiving information; posing questions about role, function, performance, or clarification about practice has merit. Members of the community of practice may even find a suitable mentor from within the group. There is capacity for networking that can reduce some of the issues associated with geographic dispersal and potentially enable collegiality between practitioners who may have common interests. Using this group for gaining feedback is also a worthy concept. As this paper alludes are are a range of models of mentoring that suit a range of health care environments. It is a matter of harnessing the potential using an appropriate mentoring model.

If you have any suggestions or comments about mentoring you are welcome to post them here.