This semester, the EAL Nursing support group is celebrating the Mentoring experience and the wealth of togetherness it brings to our faculty. We acknowledge that each student and faculty member has the remarkable potential to become a great teacher and coach! Over the past few years, our group has witnessed the beauty of our Nursing students and staff connecting with each other as volunteering Peer Mentors and group facilitators to create that positive, supportive environment that Mount Royal University is best known for.

So, what exactly have our mentors accomplished and why are they so important? First, we are grateful to our student volunteers who take the role and responsibility of pairing with fellow EAL students in need of academic and networking support. In sharing their  experiences, from clinical rotations to study tips, successes and failures, our Peer Mentors prove their readiness and willingness to see their classmates and future colleagues succeed. Next, our volunteer faculty instructors and support staff are the ones modeling for us the qualities of relentlessness and passion. They go above and beyond, ensuring that students are aware that their care and devotion to teaching is not limited to classroom time. Attending to the needs and well-being of EAL students is important.

The amount of skills and positive personal growth I received from being a Peer Mentor for the EAL is immeasurable. What I enjoyed most was realizing that in that role, I benefitted as much, if not more, from my mentees as they did from me. Exchanging personal experiences, beliefs, and culture is always a refreshing way of expanding my view of others and the world around me. Recently, I received the awesome experience of becoming preceptor to a Nursing student— once a mentor, always a mentor! The unique factor in this situation however, is that my student had once been a military RN for over 25 years!

She happened to step away from her practice for awhile and now requires a “refresher course”. My initial thoughts were, “How am I supposed to mentor an RN who has about 23 years more experience than me!?“. As I awkwardly verbalized these feelings to her, she laughed and helped me remember that both our experiences as Nurses are very different: one should never underestimate the value of their own personal knowledge and wisdom. And so, as she asks me what the best technique is in changing the flange on our ostomy patient, in exchange I ask her to recount the tale of defibrillating patients at the back of a fighter plane.

Whether we are first-time mentors exploring our new role, or seasoned life-coaches, ultimately mentoring is an essential contributive factor towards positive community building and sustainability. The stories we hear from each other can either serve as a spark of new inspiration, or as a sentimental reminder of how we used to be. Either way, both offer us an opportunity to reflect on our current selves, and perhaps give us a chance to realign our perceptions of what we are to what we want to be.  May we all continue to positively influence, impress, and overall enrich each other’s growth as Nurses and as humans, all undergoing a unique, yet universal, experience.