Practice Academic Co- Mentoring Relationships

The practice-academic co-mentoring relationships established between nurse managers/staff nurses at a regional children’s hospital and nursing faculty/graduate students at a research-intensive public university began in response to a clinical challenge. A nurse manager saw that the nurses in her unit were frustrated because they felt that they weren’t impacting the health of the Hispanic and underserved Caucasian children and families in their care. Despite their teaching efforts, many nurses believed that families weren’t responding to the information they provided. Some families had even voiced dissatisfaction with nursing care. The nurse manager was looking for creative ways to improve caring relationships between nurses and families and sought an appropriate nursing theory to guide nursing care. While attending a nursing research committee meeting at the hospital, the nurse manager shared her challenge with a visiting doctoral student. The student recommended using the Culture Care Theory, which addresses strategies for providing culturally congruent care that is satisfying and beneficial to recipients, and suggested a faculty member as a resource. The nurse manager and her assistant nurse managers met with the doctoral student and the faculty member in June of 2010. As a result, academic and clinical nursing colleagues (nursing faculty, nurse managers, staff nurses, and graduate nursing students) combined expertise and resources to address a bedside clinical challenge in the acute care hospital setting.

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Last date updated on April, 2024