In 2017, the McGill Nursing Collaborative for Education and Innovation in Patient – and –Family – Centered Care established the Nightingale Fellows Project, a group mentorship experience aimed at helping graduating students have an easier transition into clinical practice. This program, which is offered to all ISoN students in their final year of study, has two main goals: to provide educational and experiential support to students as they prepare to pass from student to nurse, and to provide a safe environment where students can discuss this process with experienced clinicians, thereby increasing their understanding of the knowledge and skills they will need to succeed as graduate nurses working in a clinical unit. Each academic year, students who participate in the Nightingale Fellows Project are placed into small groups of six to eight students, each of which is assigned to one of nine nurse mentors, These mentors, known as “Nightingale Fellows,” are all experienced nurses currently working in hospitals in Montréal. Each group of students meets with their mentors four times during the spring semester and once more the following fall, and at each meeting they discuss topics related to entering the workforce, such as preparing for the OIIQ exam, finding a job after graduation, managing workload and stress, and adjusting to organizational culture. Now in its fourth year of existence, this program has helped over 200 ISoN students with their student-to-nurse transition.
Lia Sanzone, Mélanie Lavoie-Tremblay, & Gib Primeau
