Peer mentoring: untapped potential

Abstract

Peer mentoring is a potential solution to the many challenges that nursing education is faced with today, including increasing class sizes, rising competency requirements, decreasing number of faculty, tightening budgets, and shrinking clinical placement opportunities. This article describes a successful peer mentoring program in the nursing clinical learning center at a southern Ontario university. The benefits to mentors, students, and the educational institution are discussed. In their role, peer mentors develop an increase in confidence with skills as well as with leadership and teaching abilities. Peer mentors provide a student-centered service that results in frequent positive feedback from students in all levels of the nursing program. A suggestion for the future potential of this role also is offered to expand undergraduate nursing students' exposure to peer mentoring.