Hello SPN Members,
Mentorship – A Key Component of Your Professional Growth
As we enter this season of reflection and gratitude ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, I’ve found myself thinking quite a bit about mentorship and the incredible impact that mentors can have on our career journeys. Mentorship sometimes seems like a nicety – something a little extra that’s good to have but that isn’t necessarily a requirement. Increasingly, though, I’ve come to think of mentorship as a must-have, regardless of your career phase or where you think your career is headed. Mentors help us to evaluate where we are and imagine what can be, and they can push us to think outside of the box and to tackle challenges or pursue opportunities that we might not have known about or had the confidence to go after. Mentorship also changes over the course of a career, as we grow, learn, and further define ourselves. When I was a new graduate nurse, for example, I was eager for clinical mentorship – I wanted to connect with those who were more experienced clinically and who could advise me on how to develop my clinical skills and to care for more complex patients and their families. As I gained clinical experience and began to think about the next steps in my career, my mentorship needs shifted – I sought out those who had knowledge and experience with advanced nursing roles as I contemplated what path I wanted to pursue. Once I entered a PhD program, I worked to develop my research mentorship circle so that I could work with and learn from those with research expertise and a track record of extramural funding – and I remain connected with and supported by several of those mentors today.