An analysis of a mentoring program for baccalaureate nursing students: does the past still influence the present?

In September 1999, the nursing alumni association of a large university on the West Coast launched a mentoring program for nursing undergraduate students: 120 students (50% of the student body) joined the program and 60 community nurses, representing a myriad of specialties, roles, and educational levels (diploma program to doctorate), agreed to volunteer their time as mentors. The program had been carefully planned using a survey done the previous year with 95% (296) of the student body asking their opinions on program components and design. A successful 9-month pilot study was then done with 13 students matched with 13 mentors. Yet, over the next 4 years, enrollment of the students dropped to less than 1/3 the original number. Care was taken to observe the changes in enthusiasm and to address problems with the entire group: mentors and students. After 5 years, the person chairing the program needed to leave-the transition with new leadership was never successful. Part of this resulted from problems in transition but the larger issue concerned the trend that had already been identified. The aim of this paper is to discuss the problems encountered during the program from a perspective of the context within which the program was developed and the history of mentoring in the profession of nursing. The present carries the inheritance of the past. Historically, nurses and women were not expected to need mentors-"trained nurses" did not need mentoring and women were expected to have temporary jobs which they left for marriage and mothering. The paper explores the historical question: Does the history of mentoring in nursing still influence nurses today, making it challenging to establish the relationships essential to the success of mentoring?