Saudi Arabia’s Nursing Faculty: A Mentorship Program for Fresh Graduate Clinical Instructors

Abstract

There is a global shortage of nurses and nursing faculty, which impacts healthcare quality. Saudi Arabia faces similar challenges, with a high need for qualified nurses and clinical instructors. Clinical instructors are freshly graduated nurses who take on teaching roles to train nursing students in healthcare settings. They play a very important role in the education of nurses. However, novice clinical instructors usually face big challenges handling their multifaceted responsibilities. These novice instructors face heavy workloads and insufficient preparation, causing high turnover. This paper proposes designing, planning and evaluating a 6-months mentorship program for newly hired clinical instructors at Mohammad Al Mana College for Medical Sciences (MACHS) in Saudi Arabia. The program aims to facilitate the role transition and address common challenges faced by novice instructors through mentorship guidance, whereby a more experienced mentor provides guidance, support, and advice to a less experienced mentee to promote their professional and personal growth. A situational assessment revealed that instructors need more help with onboarding, and the literature study showed that official guidance models can be helpful. Program components include mentor recruitment, interactive workshop, co-teaching opportunities and professional development activities. Benner’s novice-to-expert model is followed which aligns mentorship contents with instructor’s development. The evaluation will assess instructors’ retention, satisfaction, teaching proficiency, and mentorship relationship quality. This program can serve as a model for supporting all clinical instructors in Saudi Arabia. With proper implementation, the mentorship program will elevate the clinical instructors’ competence, satisfaction, and retention while enriching the quality of nursing education, which is essential for training the next generation of nurses and meeting healthcare system needs.