Chapter 2: Overview of mental health nursing education and training

Case Study: Dealing with a ‘difficult’ mentor

Jack is a third year mental health nursing student on placement in a busy, 20-bedded, acute inpatient ward. He is a bright, enthusiastic student, though his personal tutor say he sometimes lacks confidence in his abilities. While he had the usual ups and downs of a nursing student in the second year, his confidence in practice grew significantly during Year 2, mainly through excellent mentorship. Jack himself acknowledges this and feels the mentors he had in Year 2 were outstanding role models and that they reinforced his choice of mental health nursing as a career.

Jack’s current placement is his first final year placement, and he is very interested in working in acute mental health when he has completed his studies. He has been there for three weeks out of a run of 12 weeks. Jack’s mentor, Debbie, completed her nurse training in the 1980s under the old apprenticeship model. She frequently uses phrases with him such as ‘don’t they teach you anything at uni?’ and ‘in my day, we were running wards in third year’. Debbie always tries to ensure she is on the same shift as Jack and sets him challenging, but enjoyable and achievable, activities when working with him. Although Jack quite likes Debbie and Debbie appears to like him, Jack feels she is undermining his confidence and is worried that she might fail him on some on his practice outcomes.

What can Jack do?

› Possible answer

Jack might confront Debbie about this directly but this would require significant confidence from Jack which he currently lacks. Even though it’s early on in the placement, Jack could ask Debbie for some feedback about his progress so far, which might help allay his fears about failing his practice outcomes.

A better alternative might be to talk to his personal tutor at uni or to any practice support staff (e.g. a Practice Educator) who might be available in the organisation hosting his placement. He might also find that talking to other students in his year or placed with him (peer support) can help him reflect on the situation. What he shouldn’t do at this stage is ask for a change of mentor or to be removed to another placement area as it is unclear whether Debbie is a poor mentor or whether her comments are perhaps simple ‘banter’ that reflect her own insecurities about her abilities given the different training model she underwent.

In all of this, those supporting Jack will need to emphasise the importance of reflection and how it can help Jack learn as the nature of mental health nursing inevitably means that Jack will have to deal with ‘difficult’ people (service users, relatives, colleagues) in the future.