NHB Nurse Corps Speed Mentoring Pairs Up Prospects

By Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class (SW) Charlemagne Obana, Naval Hospital Bremerton Public Affairs

May 15, 2010 - BREMERTON, Wash (NNS) -- Naval Hospital Bremerton (NHB) nurses hosted a speed mentoring event for nurses, hospital corpsmen, support staff and students interested in career opportunities in nursing at the hospital's Terrace Dining Room May 11.

"The concept is a spin on speed dating, where you spend a few minutes talking to somebody, in this case it was a potential mentor," said NHB Command Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, Lt. Cmdr. Wendy Cook, one of the event coordinators. "Each person will have approximately three to four minutes to talk before moving on to the next station and meet the next person."

The coordinators invited 17 different subject matter experts for the event.

"We tried to select mentors who have a wide variety of experiences," said Cook. "Every mentor has their primary topic or specialty area that they're interested in talking about, and each mentor also has several secondary topics to talk about such as interesting schools they've attended, programs they've completed, and duty stations they've served."

The specialties represented at the event included preoperative nursing, flight nursing, certified nurse anesthetist, and critical care clinical nurse specialist.

"A lot of these different career paths, you really need someone to guide you," said Cook. "Some of these programs are somewhat complicated, particularly the nurse practitioner and certified nurse anesthetist program. You actually have to shadow someone on the job in order to apply for the program so it's important to make those contacts if you're interested in those fields."

"I came to the event because I am currently an active duty corpsman and I plan on getting out of the Navy to get my Bachelor's of Science in Nursing so I can come back in as a Nurse Corps officer," said Hospitalman Celinna Pascual. "I met a few other nurses from different departments that went through DUINS (Full-Time Duty Under Instruction Program), and I will definitely contact them when I have questions about the program."

"We all can benefit from a mentor because mentors are essential for everyone at any stage in their career," said Lt. Amanda Schaffeld, NHB staff nurse and co-coordinator of the event. "Mentors help by being there to answer questions, give you feedback, advocate for you, and help you learn and develop positive habits."

"With a good mentor, Sailors succeed," added Shaffeld. "The diversity of the Navy enables us to continuously benefit from the many backgrounds, experiences and resources that are here in the staff at NHB."

As part of the National Nurses Week celebration at NHB, the speed mentoring event also presented an opportunity for some of the mentors on hand to network with fellow nurses who had retired or serve in the Naval Reserves.

"There's a nursing shortage nationwide so it's important to promote our profession, not necessarily just in the Navy Nurse Corps, but nursing in general to make sure we get people interested in nursing and keep them interested in nursing," concluded Cook. "I was interested in finding out about prior enlisted officers and their transition from enlisted to officer, and I was also interested in learning about the certified nurse anesthetist program, and I got a lot of good information on that," said Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class (FMF) Gilbert Mendoza. "I'm pretty excited about becoming a nurse."