Clinical experience plays an important role in developing nursing students' learning. The interaction with patients and the staff during this experience helps nursing students to develop technical, psychomotor, interpersonal and communication skills. To enhance the clinical experience, it is important to provide students with appropriate support, guidance, and supervision in the clinical area. An effective mentor who can help students to clarify any misconceptions, raise questions and work in a safe clinical environment can provide such facilitation. Evidence suggests that various factors, such as the mentor-student relationship and the mentor's knowledge, competencies, attitude and communication skills play an important role in a students' learning. By being a role model, the mentor provides an observable image for imitation, demonstrating skills and qualities for the student to emulate. The importance of this role as a positive model cannot be understated.
Nurses mentoring nurses is a caring ''nursing situation'' of ''helping another grow''. Specific identified mentoring characteristics are closely aligned with caring attributes of intentional presence, respect, compassion, competence, confidence, conscience, commitment, and continuity. Brandi presents these characteristics to all of the students she comes into contact with. I appreciate how she instills in them a "love for rehab patients", and I am proud of how she represents Phoebe's mission and values and how she represents the future of nursing to our student population.