Advice for Creating New NP Mentorship Programs
Listen
Watch
Show notes:
Mentorship programs for new nurse practitioners are nothing less than life-changing. Mentorship programs can help ease the transition to practice for new nurse practitioners, providing guidance, reducing burnout, and building new clinicians' confidence to take excellent care of their patients.
I’ve been running Real World NP for 5 years and have offered a few different mentorship programs for new nurse practitioners. I found mentorship to be extremely supportive as a new grad myself, and have tried a few different types of offerings for mentorship programs through Real World NP (1-on-1, various groups and durations) to explore what other new nurse practitioners would find supportive.
I’ve gotten enough questions from the RWNP community about how we’ve done things here in our mentorship programs over the years that I wanted to record an episode to share with you if that’s something you either want to create or advocate for your clinic to create to support you!
There are MANY ways to support new nurse practitioners, and in this episode, I shared my experiences and insights from starting and running mentorship programs. I discussed different structures to consider, frequency, and duration of mentorship meetings, topics to cover, and some options for program design that have worked better than others.
If you liked this post, also check out:
-
00:00:00:18 - 00:00:21:05
Liz Rohr
So in this episode I wanted to share about starting a mentorship program. So I've actually had enough people reach out at this point that I figured it would be helpful if I just shared with you the things that I shared with them, on these calls. And I think the contexts are different from the different people that I've talked to in terms of like what the setting is and what the what they're specifically looking for.
00:00:21:07 - 00:00:38:05
Liz Rohr
But a lot of the things that I have to offer to share about what my experiences have been, you can kind of just take it, take it or leave it based on, like what? And apply it to like, what your current circumstances are. Because I think there are some, like, universal sort of principles to think about as you're designing your program.
00:00:38:07 - 00:01:00:16
Liz Rohr
So first off, I want to share kind of the context of like why I'm sharing my mentorship. Like what what my experience with mentorship has been, to see if that's relevant to what you're looking to do. But then also, I can kind of segue from there into what are those kind of core principles of like what I've discovered with mentorship, that you can take and apply to your own programs.
00:01:00:18 - 00:01:32:02
Liz Rohr
So, yeah, so just for context, to start. So I've had real world, Real World NP the company for about four and a half years at this point, almost five. And I've done mentorship in some capacity the entire time. So I graduated, as a nurse practitioner. And I was lucky enough to have, a mentor at my clinic where I met with them, a more experienced nurse practitioner, and I met with them for once a week, for about an hour, to talk about clinical cases, to run through my, like, you know, confidence and imposter syndrome and stuff like that.
00:01:32:04 - 00:01:48:00
Liz Rohr
And, I did that for about eight months. I was very, very lucky. I blocked off an hour of my clinic time to be able to have this conversation with this clinician, and applied my learnings throughout the week. So I am double checking, I don't know, I'll talk about the content of of what we've talked about in mentorship.
00:01:48:00 - 00:02:07:10
Liz Rohr
But if you are a you are a nurse practitioner, want new nurse practitioner ones, you probably know what some of the things are right. But anyway, so that's what I did. And when I started Real World NP I wanted to set up some sort of mentorship offerings so that people could have access to that outside of their clinic because they weren't getting what they needed at the clinic setting.
00:02:07:12 - 00:02:28:18
Liz Rohr
And so I first started with one on one mentorship, and I did that same sort of set up where I met with, a client. This is a paid service, because it's a continuing education company. And so they would pay for three months at a time, one hour meetings once a week, and then access in between, if they had questions with emails and stuff like that.
00:02:28:20 - 00:02:48:22
Liz Rohr
This is all remote. Because it's people from all over the US. And so basically that we started with that and people would usually go for three months at a time and then be like, you know what I think? I think I'm good. Some people went to a full six months of mentorship. And then they felt like they were ready to kind of be on their own without that extra support.
00:02:49:00 - 00:03:07:14
Liz Rohr
But that was typically what happened, a couple of years and I started a group mentorship program, like several different cohorts where it was around 6 to 8 people, and, in a small group with either one mentor, myself or one of my team members, or it was jointly held with myself and another team member.
00:03:07:16 - 00:03:22:23
Liz Rohr
Yeah. And then we did a similar thing. We had it a longer period of time to meet. It was about 90 minutes instead of 60, just because we wanted to allow for time for discussion. More more discussion to make sure everybody had a chance to participate. And we ran that for about three months as well.
00:03:23:00 - 00:03:39:08
Liz Rohr
And then later on decided to cut it down to the two months instead because of people just, I don't know if it felt like people were kind of were good where they felt like they were feeling a bit better after the two months in that group setting. So why? And I shared that for context. So hopefully that's helpful to hear that.
00:03:39:08 - 00:04:00:20
Liz Rohr
That's the experience that I'm bringing. And I think that the things that I've shared with people when we've gotten on the phone together or we've gotten on a zoom call or something like that, I think there's like a couple of components to think about in, in designing a mentorship program, because I think a lot of the struggles that people have in the real world setting is that it's like, okay, well, how much time what is like the minimum amount of time?
00:04:00:20 - 00:04:19:18
Liz Rohr
Because I'm kind of like fighting this thing with my leadership. Or it's like, okay, they need blocked patient time so that they can have this mentorship time. But like, how long is enough and how often should we do it and stuff like that? Because if, as you're probably familiar as an experienced nurse practitioner, probably if you're listening to this, you're experienced, but if not, you know, something to learn.
00:04:19:18 - 00:04:37:06
Liz Rohr
If you're if you're a newer, grad or student, it is it's unfortunate the way that the healthcare model is set up is that when we see patients in the clinic, that's what generates revenue for the clinic to stay open. We have a revenue generating position. And so when we don't see patients, the clinic doesn't make money.
00:04:37:06 - 00:04:58:21
Liz Rohr
And so it's typically like this conversation of push pull of like okay, well we need these resources to support our staff. But at the same time it's not helping the clinic bring in money, but in the long run, it's like helping support them, not burning out and switching jobs and all of the stuff that's involved. When you hire a new person, it's a lot more expensive than if you support the people that you have and retain them.
00:04:58:23 - 00:05:12:05
Liz Rohr
So anyway, that's a little bit of a longer conversation in there, but but that's usually the decision making point is like, how often should we do it? How should we structure it, how long should it be, and what are the things that we should talk about? And so I can kind of talk about that piece next.
00:05:12:05 - 00:05:30:16
Liz Rohr
And and I don't think there's any hard and fast rules. But I like I said, you can take what resonates and then just bring that with you. I think for me, from my personal anecdotal experience, I was very lucky to have eight full months of mentorship. And it kind of like alternated towards the end, like I think it was like a solid six months.
00:05:30:16 - 00:05:50:20
Liz Rohr
And then it was like the last two months were sort of like every other week because there were some cancellations that happened and things like that. And I don't think that anybody ever feels ready. And you probably remember this from your own experience again, as an experienced clinician. No one ever feels ready. But the first 3 to 6 months, I think, are a really crucial part, for new grads.
00:05:50:22 - 00:06:07:19
Liz Rohr
And so when I've talked with people, you know, it'd be really lovely if we had like a full year. But at least the very first three months to six months are the most, I think, crucial time to get that support for new grads, because that's what the time when they're the first time they're on their own. They don't have a preceptor to run their cases by anymore.
00:06:08:00 - 00:06:25:00
Liz Rohr
They just have to make clinical decisions on their own. And like they're getting in the in the rhythm of that. And it's just like drinking from a firehose. People really feel like they're drowning in the first three weeks, the first month, two months, three months, and they're like, okay, starting to get a bit better. And then every three months from there, it tends to get better and better.
00:06:25:02 - 00:06:39:23
Liz Rohr
And so what I've noticed is that when I've worked with clients, mentees in the first, you know, three months or so, whether it's individual or in the group setting, is that they really want to bring their clinical cases. And they're like, you know, I just want to run this by you make sure that I did this correctly.
00:06:39:23 - 00:06:58:23
Liz Rohr
What do you think I should have done? You know, what about these lab results? Like, what about this referral? What about this? You know, X, Y, and Z, they're bringing a lot of those examples of, like, double checking. And then as things tend to progress over the course of weeks to months, there's a little bit more conversation about, like navigating health care.
00:06:59:04 - 00:07:16:12
Liz Rohr
So it's like, how do I manage my schedule? Because it's crazy. How do I manage my time and get my notes done and write the appropriate notes? And how do I delegate to my medical assistant? And how do I, you know, communicate with my leadership? How do I prevent burning out? Or like, what are the I feel starting to feel burnt out?
00:07:16:12 - 00:07:37:17
Liz Rohr
Like how what do I do about that? Everybody's got a different philosophy of practice. When I bring my question, I get like 12 different answers, right? A lot of people say that in that role transition. So, so yeah. So that's so I've found that, and when I've had clients, I think because it's a paid service, I think that there's a little bit more of like, you know, what do I do?
00:07:37:17 - 00:07:55:16
Liz Rohr
I really need this. Like, do I really want to continue to pay for the service or am I okay versus if it's a non paid service? I think that people would probably want to continue past that three month mark. But I that that would be my kind of like anecdotal hunch about why people want to continue on or not.
00:07:55:18 - 00:08:13:19
Liz Rohr
In terms of the service that we provide versus in the quote unquote real world. And I think that there is so I guess the in terms of the frequency, I think it really depends on the setting that you have, the resources that you have. I think as a group, it would be really nice to meet every week or even individuals every every week.
00:08:13:21 - 00:08:30:12
Liz Rohr
But if you had to, if I had to prioritize, with the amount of money that I had to spend in a clinic setting or like, quote unquote sacrifice because, you know, that nurse practitioner wasn't seeing patients, I'd really prioritize those first three months of kind of like a little bit more stacked every week and then kind of taper off from there.
00:08:30:18 - 00:08:58:12
Liz Rohr
If I didn't have access to the full more time than that. I really liked having an hour for, mentees. I could do 45 minutes to an hour, usually for the groups. I think that everybody has a different experience with facilitation, but I think I really appreciated having those 90 minutes. If I could, you could cut it down to 60, but it's just really nice that everybody can share their patient cases and you can have a longer discussion potentially.
00:08:58:14 - 00:09:19:00
Liz Rohr
And then in terms of the things to teach about, I sort of touched on it already, but there's a lot of like thematic things that happen. And there's this research I think it's Brenner's don't quote me on that, but it's a nurse practitioner or nurse researcher that talks about this role transition. And it's a pretty common phenomena of like how it progresses.
00:09:19:01 - 00:09:35:02
Liz Rohr
And I found that it's really similar in the mentees that I've worked with. It's like almost the exact same every single time where people first come to me of like, check my answer kind of thing, or what's the right answer here? And so there's a lot of like, well, what do you think about that? What are the resources that you have?
00:09:35:02 - 00:09:50:15
Liz Rohr
What is the process you have to make those clinical judgments to trust your decision making. And we kind of like work our way through that. And then, and, and maybe just like answering clinical questions that because their brain is really tired and then like, I just I can't look up anything more. Can you just like, help me answer this question?
00:09:50:17 - 00:10:10:17
Liz Rohr
And then, like I said, as things progressed, there's a little bit more conversation about, you know, philosophy of practice of like, you know, when should I refer to a specialist? What's your comfort level? What's the minimum you need to do for primary care? What's the more maximum scope that you can extend to once you get more practice? If you want to do that based on your own philosophy of practice, what are your interests?
00:10:10:17 - 00:10:41:11
Liz Rohr
Right. And, yeah. And just and it just kind of builds from there. Like I said, the primary care challenges of, like, how to navigate health care and how to do billing and coding and how to all those, like, kind of extra things that you don't really learn about in school. But then I think, I think what the moral of the story, the take home, I'd love to to share in terms of like if I'm going to if, if I'm trying to design a program where there's like a combination of mentorship and teaching, where it's just kind of like a group facilitated discussion about patient cases, is that kind of mentorship thing
00:10:41:11 - 00:10:59:00
Liz Rohr
of helping people trust themselves and, like, not feel so alone in this process, like those I think are the really main, key factors. But I think if you also have that opportunity to do teaching, there are so many different topics that people can choose, and you can always ask and see what the things are that people are struggling with.
00:10:59:02 - 00:11:16:19
Liz Rohr
But I always recommend, choosing something that, and you know, this, but just just to share, like you probably know this already, but just to kind of bring it to the forefront of your mind, like is there's like, even though their brains are so tired, like the new grads brains are so tired, they have resources to read about things.
00:11:16:21 - 00:11:37:15
Liz Rohr
I still would recommend teaching something that they can't really read about in, on up to date on dynamic and stuff like that. Like that. They can't really just like, okay, like for example, like elevated lfts like I had this article from UpToDate that I printed out and I referenced like a thousand times, when I first became a new nurse practitioner.
00:11:37:17 - 00:11:55:14
Liz Rohr
But I could still access it. And I was still there. Right. Versus there are some clinical topics where it's like it's a combination of like, you can learn about it in an article, but you kind of need to apply it. And there's a little bit of nuance there. And maybe that's not like the most specific answer, but hopefully that will help trigger for you.
00:11:55:14 - 00:12:15:10
Liz Rohr
Like, what are those kind of nuanced topics that you can bring your clinical expertise and wisdom to that they can't find in? I keep wanting to say textbook. I know we're not reading textbooks, but that's you know what I'm saying? Like, what are those topics that you can bring that nuance to? Dermatology is great because I feel like there's so much nuance there, right?
00:12:15:10 - 00:12:35:19
Liz Rohr
Lab interpretation is the number one thing that new grads come to me for, which is why I made the lab interpretation course. Right. It doesn't like you don't. Obviously, if you want to direct your your mentees or new grads to the lab interpretation course, I would be honored. Because that's why I made that resource. But it doesn't have to be that resource, but some sort of something that can help them.
00:12:35:21 - 00:12:56:04
Liz Rohr
And I think lab interpretation is a really great example, because it's not just about reading the article about elevated lfts. There's a lot of clinical judgment and decision making that goes into there. And it's a skill, right? It's a lab interpretation is like a huge one. Things like, you know, imaging and X-rays and EKGs, those are all really high demand topics if you have access to that.
00:12:56:06 - 00:13:15:06
Liz Rohr
But aside from that, like I said, it's really just like, what are the most common things that people are seeing? And what is the spin that you can add to it that doesn't that isn't something they could get from a textbook. But yeah. And I guess maybe the last thing to add is that this has come up a little bit and talking to people is like, how to choose mentors?
00:13:15:08 - 00:13:35:03
Liz Rohr
In a program depending like if you have funding to do this, you know, some sort of funding versus like it's like, oh, I'm just blocking time off. And it's whoever is working here gets to be a mentor. I think one really important thing to think about when it comes to attributes of, of mentors is it's a combination of, it's a combination of a couple of things.
00:13:35:03 - 00:13:51:00
Liz Rohr
I think that what's really important for new nurse practitioners is having safe psychological space. That's one of the things I really try to model with real world. And is that like, there aren't any dumb questions. We're all in this together. We just want to give safe care to of our patients. And so, like, I have any shame in there.
00:13:51:00 - 00:14:16:20
Liz Rohr
Just like, you know, everything is okay. Just like, let's just talk about it and, that's like our guiding principle. And so it's like a safe psychological space. And it's really great when a mentor can kind of hold two different approaches. So a lot of, for example, a lot of mentees that I've had are very, very anxious, they're all anxious, but the ones that are very anxious and the thing that helps calm them down is the clinical knowledge.
00:14:16:22 - 00:14:29:16
Liz Rohr
For example, if they're like, hey, here's this lab, I want to know exactly what it means. I want to know all the work up for it. I want to know when to refer them. I want to know, like the almost like the full depth of the clinical answer, even if you as an experienced nurse practitioner, you're like, you know what?
00:14:29:16 - 00:14:52:03
Liz Rohr
You're a new grad. Like, you don't really need that right now. Like it's a it's actually better for you to do like the less intense option that's like safer as you develop your skill set. But again, like they feel safe when they understand if like A through F are the steps to get to a specialist, they want to know what a through f r versus it's actually safe for you to refer once you get from the A through D workup.
00:14:52:05 - 00:15:09:03
Liz Rohr
And then you also have the other people who are like, you know, asking. They're super anxious. Also, but they're like, hey, I actually they don't know how to articulate this, but you can kind of understand that they're looking for the answer. They're like, just give me the 830 answer. Give me like bare minimum of what I need to do to give safe care.
00:15:09:09 - 00:15:33:21
Liz Rohr
And then I'm going to refer them out, for example. Right. And I having a mentor that is able to both see, see that request in both of the mentees, and then give the answer that they need to help them feel safe. So that's, that's a little bit of a tricky answer, and it's a little bit of a vague thing, but hopefully you kind of like are feeling me on like what that criteria is.
00:15:34:02 - 00:15:50:20
Liz Rohr
That's something that I've been working on, trying to figure out how to hire for, and like how to interview and ask the questions for that. I don't have those to give you right now. Maybe if I do, at some point I'll let you know. But, but yeah, hopefully those things are helpful for you to start thinking about your own mentorship program.
00:15:50:22 - 00:16:08:21
Liz Rohr
Like I said, it's really like, what are what is the design choice, how often to meet how long, you know, do you have funding? Do you just have to block clinic time? You know, is it a group program? Is it one on one? And what are the things that you want to cover? Like, that's kind of really what I've covered in this episode.
00:16:08:23 - 00:16:32:10
Liz Rohr
And I guess maybe the last point to make as a takeaway is that I think there is I mean, there is qualitative research out there. I'm not familiar with it in terms of like, what are the experiences and maybe some best practices, stuff like that. But, I know from anecdotally from other people who have run residencies or mentorship programs, what are the main takeaways that people have is like having peers and not feeling alone.
00:16:32:12 - 00:16:49:15
Liz Rohr
And so bare minimum. If you're supporting them, if you're helping them feel safe and not alone. Like that's really the most important aspect from my opinion, anecdotal experience and opinion. So yeah, so hopefully this is helpful for you to make your own kind of design choices going forward.
© 2025 Real World NP. For educational and informational purposes only, see realworldnp.com/disclaimer for full details.
