What Precepting Means to Me

You were an excellent preceptor. You provided a great experience for your student! Many thanks Luckily, I had a wonderful preceptor in my last semester (recent ADN grad!) and wished the time I had with her didn't have to end so soon. She somehow knew exactly what I was doing, even when I was alone with the patient . Each week, she would go over all the patients I was assigned to in the ER, how many IV's, blood draws, NG's, etc. and say, "See, look at all you were able to do!" It really helped my confidence level go up. She even came to the pinning ceremony and gave me a beautiful little angel necklace. It was the first year our college offered a preceptor program. It went so well that my preceptor and I have been asked to speak at a conference about our experience.

Nurse Grace, I want to congratulate you on providing an excellent preceptor-ship to your new colleague. As you alluded to in your post, many nurses are not suited for precepting new employees and especially new graduates. Many nurses confuse “orienting” someone to the unit with “precepting”. Orienting a new or visiting staff member only provides them the basic’s – an overview of the unit and a review of the most used policies and procedures. While precepting builds on the basic orientation by developing critical thought, providing controlled yet increasingly challenging situations to enhance their growth and finally someone they can trust as they start making those “first steps” on their own. I have been holding different nursing leadership jobs for the past 14 years. Most of those years have come while serving in the U.S. Army. One of the biggest differences I have seen when comparing civilian to military nursing is in the category of professional growth. While I was working as a civilian, professional growth was usually performed by on the job training and by completing advanced learning on your own time and dollar. In the military, we have many opportunities for professional growth. We have programmed leadership courses that provide us with new theories and techniques as we advance through our careers. We also have the ability for fully funded master’s and PhD programs to educate us in our desired area of clinical expertise. Now I understand that it is very hard for hospitals to be able to fiscally stomach the dollars required to provide a staff member time off from a demanding clinical unit and still provide them with the financial resources to complete advanced education. In fact, for many facilities, this is probably impossible. However, there is one final piece of professional growth that we perform in the U.S. Army that could be easily adaptable to your unit and correlates well with your excellent preceptor-ship you recently provided.We practice informal mentorship. The Army defines “Mentoring” as “—a leader with greater experience than the one receiving the mentoring, provides guidance and advice; it is a future-oriented developmental activity focused on growing in the Profession” (Army Field Manual -- FM 6-22). As a clinical Soldier, we develop this Army definition into the next phase of our preceptor-ship. Let me better illustrate this by providing a quick story. Several years ago I was coming out of Registered Nurse-First Assistant (RNFA) training and was provided a good preceptor-ship. However, I still was not as proficient as the more experienced RNFA’s in the operating room. I noticed an RNFA that always seemed well prepared and so I went up to him after work and asked if he would help me develop my skills. Over the next several months this individual gave me great research articles to read for a better understanding on my job and I was always able to call him to ask those “what if” questions or to bounce new ideas off of someone I trusted. Over the years we have both continued to advance and through our careers. Many of the times we are not even stationed in the same state or continent but this has not stopped me retaining him as a mentor. As you can see mentoring someone is very similar to precepting a new employee/graduate. It is not only the new employee that needs to be challenged to develop professionally, we all need to. As I have moved from location to location over the years I have witnessed the positive results of a unit with active mentorship. They have been more clinically versed and perform with tighter unit cohesion which ultimately resulted in better patient experiences and outcomes (our most important goal).

You are AWESOME! I wish we all could have a preceptor just like you! Congrats to you and keep up the good work!

Being a preceptor can be a challenging job, and you've done a great job by adapting such a positive attitude! I find it sometimes difficult to walk that line between being there for the new nurse and "hovering" too much/too little. I like to let the new nurses learn from their own mistakes, as I think tripping over your own feet is a good way to remind yourself to watch where you're walking. (yet at the same time I want them to feel supported for sure)It sounds like you've developed a nice routine for training a new nurse and I applaud you for stepping up to the challenge and being a positive role model and mentor to new nurses!