Mentoring: the ultimate professional relationship.

ABSTRACT

Mentoring plays a significant role in business, industry, government, education, and healthcare. Mentoring relationships help promote the individual's professional growth and development. Such development involves knowledge and skill acquisition, which is facilitated by interaction with other, more experienced and proficient professionals. The Belcher-Sibbald Continuum of Learning describes the relationship among the concepts of role modeling, networking, preceptoring, and mentoring. Each concept is defined and described as a unique relationship which promotes professional growth and development. In addition, three mentoring/networking relationships in the context of the wound care community are presented to provide insight into this type of relationship.