Faculty

Honors programs in nursing can facilitate the professional development of high-achieving students, supporting their lifelong engagement in nursing practice, education, research, and health care policy issues. Strong mentoring relationships are commonly identified as essential to the success of nursing honors programs, but literature on mentoring relationships in an honors context is limited. The purpose of this study was to gain insight into faculty and student expectations for mentorship. Faculty and students shared similar expectations for both the mentor and mentee, highlighting key themes of engagement, facilitation, accountability, and collaboration as necessary for the success of an undergraduate nursing honors program.

Background In order to meet the demands of a dynamic and complex health care landscape, nursing education must develop and implement programming to produce a highly educated nursing workforce. Interprofessional honors education in nursing with targeted mentorship is one such model. Purpose To describe undergraduate nursing student and faculty perceptions and beliefs of mentorship in the context of interprofessional honors education, and compare and contrast the perceptions and beliefs about mentorship in interprofessional honors education between undergraduate nursing students and faculty. Methods The study used a cross-sectional, descriptive design. Data were collected at an urban university in the northeast US, using a researcher-developed electronic survey. The sample included 24 full-time nursing faculty, and 142 undergraduate nursing students. Results Perceptions and beliefs regarding mentorship in the context of interprofessional honors education were similar for faculty and students, with both ranking mentorship among the most important components of a successful honors program. Conclusions Honors education with a dedicated mentorship component may be implemented to improve the undergraduate education experience, facilitate advanced degree attainment, and develop future nursing leaders.

Good oral health is important to overall health. Oral and pharyngeal cancers account for 2% of all cancers, yet no signify cant improvement in mortality has been demonstrated over the past 30 years. Nurses are in a unique position to integrate and conduct oral health assessments across a wide range of practice settings. Although nursing programs include health assessment and promotion in their curricula, there is poor integration of oral health as a focus. This study aimed to identify the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of baccalaureate nursing students about oral health assessment. A convenience sample of 163 students in two undergraduate courses within a baccalaureate nursing education program was surveyed. Findings indicated that these nursing students felt that oral health was essential to their nursing practice; however, they did not have a full understanding of the key components of an oral health examination or about effective smoking cessation strategies.