title: Continuing Education for Mentors and a Mentoring Program for RN-to-BSN Students.
abstract: Mentoring programs have been used effectively with graduate and undergraduate nursing students and newly licensed nurses. There are few publications about mentoring for the RN enrolled in a bachelor of science in nursing (RN-to-BSN) program. To address low graduation rates in the public RN-to-BSN nursing programs, the Montana Center to Advance Health Through Nursing designed a mentoring program to help these nurses achieve their BSN. This voluntary program was initiated at an RN-to-BSN program in a 4-year college with six RN students who were paired with a mentor. An interactive, continuing education workshop on mentoring also was developed to prepare experienced nurses for their role as a mentor. This workshop was held nine times across Montana, with a total of 156 attendees. Workshop evaluations were consistently positive. Participants identified time and personality issues as barriers to successful mentoring and recommended expansion of the workshop to a distance-learning format so more nurses could attend. J Contin Educ Nurs. 2016;47(6):272-277.
authors.forename: Rita E
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: Cheek
authors.forename: Jo Ann
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Walsh Dotson
authors.forename: LeAnn A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Ogilvie
mesh_terms: D004496:Education, Continuing / Q000458:organization & administration*; D020375:Education, Distance / Q000458:organization & administration*; D004508:Education, Nursing, Baccalaureate / Q000458:organization & administration*; D004518:Education, Professional, Retraining / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D000071252:Mentoring / Q000458:organization & administration*; D008611:Mentors / Q000193:education*; D009009:Montana; D015402:Nursing Education Research