What is the most insightful thing someone ever told you? When I try to narrow down my answer to this I struggle. I lost my mom when I was twenty four years old. It was traumatizing and also character building. She was my mentor in all ways and without her presence I have struggled in my life, particularly with making hard decisions. Thankfully I have had some career-guiding, life-changing people come into my life at exactly the right moments. The story I share most often is in regards to deciding to go back for a masters degree. A friend of my moms (who happened to be a nurse at the hospital where I worked) said “Briana, what’s your hangup?” I told her the big issue was the burden I would put my husband and children through for two straight years. Especially the girls who wouldn’t see as much of me. Her response “Honey, two years will pass whether you are in school or not, where do you want to be in two years? And what will teach your girls more, being present for all the events or role modeling how hard things are done?”

Okay universe, I hear ya.

Sometimes people come along organically like this, sometimes we seek out those we admire and want to emulate. At this point in my professional life I have hired coaches and teachers to help me in my day job as well as in my side hustle. I recognize the inherent value in investing in a person who can objectively help me see what I cannot see for myself. Life is hard, navigating a career is hard. For me, the ROI of having a guide is money well spent. I’m not saying you need to go out and hire a person to mentor you (but I’m here if you do 😉 desire that). In this post I’ll discuss the benefits a mentor can provide, how to find a mentor near you, and how to utilize a mentor in your early days as a new nurse practitioner.

Mentor, Coach? Are they the same?

Yes and no. Clear as mud right? They both have similar goals: use your personal skills to help another human become their highest and best self. IMO the difference is in the methodology and focus of how they achieve this. A coach is more inspirational in nature; more performance based. They strive to mold a mentee into a powerhouse within their arena through teaching, direction, and inspiration. A mentor is more focused on whole-self development, be it career focus or otherwise. They work with a person to help them determine their goals and develop a strategy to obtain them. Their approach is more guidance driven through big picture strategy.

Why would you want one of these people in your life as an upcoming or new NP and how can they specifically help you?

1. If you are in a season of indecision about school, field of study choice, or career change the people in your inner circle may have limited understanding of your struggles.

2. One of the tenets from The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People is to begin with the end in mind. If you have insight about how to get to the end goal from some one who is inside the end goal you have a secret weapon. Who better to guide you through something than a person who has gone before, and likely experienced the same hardships?

3. You may have obtained your first job and face massive imposter syndrome. You may also be struggling with the massive learning curve. Many many new NPs come out feeling woefully under-prepared for the task at hand. I won’t get into my rant about why I believe our school systems and poor clinical options are failing us as a profession. Training aside, even with the best possible option this is still a lot to learn. I have yet, to this day, to meet an NP who said onboarding was easy. The burden is heavy, far heavier than what you carried as a bedside nurse. We all feel the pressure to perform well. No one went into healthcare thinking “Meh, if I don’t help anyone that’s ok.” Others’ lives are in our hands and we feel it.

4. Most physician groups who employ NPs are fast paced work places. They expect you to be up and running faster than you may be capable of or they have the luxury of affording you time for. You need to be operational real quick and without someone to ask questions this can become overwhelming real quick. You may find yourself staying late every day, taking work home, studying constantly, second guessing every decision you make.

5. Too many teams lack structured/defined orientation programs and may not even have someone to train

6. Having a mentor will offer you a dedicated person to help smooth out this trajectory. You’ll be safer, perform more efficiently, shorten your time to competence/confidence, start going home on time, and alleviate a portion of the heavy burden that is keeping you awake at night.

How to set up your mentorship

When you identify and put a label to a relationship you assign responsibility. If there is a person in your inner circle at work, in an online group, or even a paid mentor you should really be asking for a formal assignment of roles. This sets up expectations and allows you both to more effectively use your time together.

1. Identify your primary objectives.

   • Are you wanting clinical oversight? Let them know your specific areas of weakness, your ideal learning style, and specific methods they can employ to help you. For example: if you are working in a inpatient group, do you need more 1 on 1 time for orientation? Do you need more direct/hands on care of the patients? Are you struggling more with differential diagnoses or physical exam, etc? Would it be most helpful to you to spend more time writing notes?

   • Is your issue more related to work flow/speed? Can they provide you with a list of resources or phone numbers of helpful teams at your organization? Can they show you note writing work-arounds?

   • Are you struggling with communication with patients or colleagues? Can they share helpful insight about team members or even just act as a sounding board for when you have had a difficult interaction? You would be amazed at how often new hires really just need a colleague to vent to or to offer validation. Especially in outpatient/clinic environments where you are largely independent/alone for the majority of the day.

2. Determine when and how you will meet

   • For out patient: Ask your employer if you can schedule a 1-4 hour session per week with a mentor/colleague to review your most concerning cases of the week. Run through how you worked them up, what you ordered, your plan and ask them what they would have done. You would be amazed how much you can learn this way. It will alleviate taking up their time during the heat of a busy day when they likely do not have time to delay their own schedule. Identify to your employer how clustering your questions into one block will ultimately streamline the time that would have been spent putting you back on formal orientation and therefore speed up the time to getting you productive for the group.

   • For someone meeting up with a mentor: go back to your primary objectives and let the mentor know how best to educate you in a short time frame. Would you like to review some of your personal cases for the week? Would you like to have open ended Q&A sessions? Would you like tutoring style where a subject a day is picked and you focus primarily on that?

   • For inpatient: Try to narrow down on the time you need and the level of involvement you need. Do you think you require another 50 patients seen together, and how long would a census of that number take to achieve? Ask for feedback as you are going along specific to your weaknesses, let them know you desire constructive criticism as this is your opportunity to grow with oversight.

Where to find a mentor

• In your practice. Look for perhaps the less obvious person. Someone who will not necessarily take it easy on you or tell you what you want to hear. Try to get employer paid admin time for your weekly block of mentorship. If not, incentivize them in some way. I know, you are already balking at this. Pay money? When I’m just starting to make a paycheck and repay my loan? I know it feels like anathema, but the ROI you will achieve with being able to work more efficiently will pay back in dividends of time and/or directly money, particularly those of you who work on a productivity model.

• In your circle. Do you have classmates, professors, friends who could help? Offer line item ways they can help and identify time/place and again, incentivize. Even if its just buying a coffee.

• In your next outward concentric circle. This would be local but non familiar to you mentors. Folks who work in your arena but you do not know. I would start by asking around word of mouth. People you work with, classmates who know someone not in your circle or region but who do what you do. Search for local FB groups specific to your niche. For example, I would look for Atlanta Nurse Practitioners or Adult Gero Acute Care NP groups. There are tons of FB groups out there. Join, use the search function to see if your questions have been asked before. Observe and see who comments regularly, offers good advice and then reach out to them personally with the same offer as above. Can we meet online weekly for mentorship? Some people will do this free of charge.

• Search online for paid mentorships. Now, at the risk of being sales-y I ave to share some details about why I think these relationships are a win-win. As I said above, I have paid relationships in many arenas of my life. Why? It allows you to find someone who has shared their expertise and you have samples of their work/beliefs to determine if this is the person you want to emulate. The proof is out there. They are invested in your growth and they are protective of their time so they can help you identify the issues quicker and offer very specific advise on how to improve. I have built a business with coaches in certain aspects and not in others, I can tell you the coaches I have had have been extremely beneficial. I did have one coaching team I was a part of that was less helpful. She offered a money back guarantee. Since I had partaken in some of her content and group meetings I accepted a partial refund and called it a day. It’s not always a slam dunk. This particular membership was focused on a different sales strategy than what I employ and also was designed for much larger companies than I am. You have to do your due diligence to determine if this mentor is right for you. But when they are - man the time, energy, and money you can save is priceless.

I offer mentorship in the format of one on one conversations which you could learn about more here. I also offer structured coaching packages you can learn more about by clicking on the photos below.

Don’t forget to join us for this week’s YouTube Livestream discussing mentorship, where you can get your questions answered in real time, with a community of nurses, NPs, and students! Thursday 3/2 at 3pm EST.