Nurse Like Me Mentorship Project

Abstract

The nursing shortage continues to grow along with the aging population of the US. COVID-19 only exacerbated this shortage. The Nurse Like Me (NLM) project aimed to reduce the nursing shortage while increasing diversity in nursing through mentorship between high school students and college students of similar ethnicities, backgrounds, or interests. Due to barriers in communication, the project design was altered to use mentorship between volunteer nurse professionals for high school students in a nursing fundamentals course. The project design included a pre-survey administered to the high school students for pairing with a mentor of similar demographics or interests. The mentor pairs completed four virtual meetings where high school students were provided information on nursing programs, scholarships, and tips for success in a nursing curriculum. Only one white female mentorship pair completed all required components of the study project. Limitations included communication delays and competing agendas at project sites, technological barriers, and COVID-19 restrictions. Implications for future studies include identifying technical barriers before implementation, providing paper and electronic consent forms, and purposefully engaging diverse student populations in nurse mentorship programs.