Scholars' experiences with faculty mentoring: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Future of Nursing Scholars Program.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Future of Nursing Scholars program supported nurses to complete PhDs in 3 years. Support mechanisms included mentoring by the program office and school faculty, and leadership development activities. PURPOSE: To describe scholars' perspectives of mentoring received by faculty during the accelerated timeline. METHODS: Of 201 scholars, 157 (78%) completed exit surveys, providing qualitative data on their experiences working with faculty mentors. DISCUSSION: Scholars highlighted strong mentorship (i.e., accessibility, emotional support) as the most important facilitator to program completion. Mentor challenges were identified as the second-most mentioned barrier to success, while the first was the accelerated timeline. CONCLUSION: The scholars' most-reported mentor-provided facilitators to success were availability and emotional support. Among scholars who noted barriers to their success caused by their mentor relationship, the most-reported issue was lack of access to their mentors.