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?