Mentors

The simplest definition of a mentor is someone in your profession who you trust to help guide you through the ups and downs of your career. And, ideally, a mentor will also provide you with some insight into the bigger picture.

This description sounds vague, but it's what differentiates mentors from career coaches or preceptors, the more familiar source of professional advice for healthcare workers, particularly nurses. Career coaches typically help people who are unhappy in their work and are looking to switch jobs or careers. Preceptors generally act as a first guide to people working in a new clinical setting, or help people to develop a set of skills for a particular specialty. But a mentor is someone whose advice and feedback is geared towards an individual's personal development and long-term goals.

Why Do We Need Mentors?

If a career were simply a matter of moving forward on the basis of ability and experience, then there wouldn't be a need for mentors. Of course, things aren't that simple and there are often times when we need feedback on issues that straddle the divide between the strictly professional and the personal.

These issues include:

Because a mentor should possess the best qualities of a career coach and a close friend, a mentor will be ideally suited to help with these issues. Put differently, a mentor should be thoroughly familiar with our profession, and should also be familiar with makes us tick as individuals.

So Where Do You Find a Mentor?

Not surprisingly, mentors are difficult to come by as we get older. When we're younger, mentors tend to be coaches, teachers, or professors. We went to them when we needed a role model or some inspiration, or whenever we were in doubt about how to move forward in our lives. Admitting to these needs gets a lot more difficult later on in life.

This doesn't mean that there is a lack of options. Getting in touch with a professional organization is one way to find a mentor in mid-career. Going back to one's alma mater is another, since many college and university career centers have contact lists of professionals willing to talk with graduates about their career paths.

In healthcare, employers are increasingly recognizing the value of mentors as a means of curbing employee turnaround related to job dissatisfaction, which is also as a means of reducing shortages in areas such as nursing. In Ontario, Canada, for example, the government recently earmarked $28 million to entice nurses over 55 to stay on the job by reducing the physically demanding aspects of their work and asking them, instead, to do things like mentor their younger colleagues.

What Makes a Mentor?

If there's one quality to look for in a potential mentor, then it has to be dependability. In the end, a mentor should be there for the long-term, and be willing to help us with our career and all of its corresponding sidetracks, good and bad. This takes a certain degree of responsibility, however, and it's why real mentors are so rare in our lives.

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