Cherryl Rainey earned her PhD from the College of Nursing in December. Her dissertation examined how mentoring can be a catalyst for work engagement and professional development among nurses. (Photo by Derik Holtmann)

After earning her BSN in 2011 and her MSN in nursing education in 2014, Cherryl Rainey had a desire to advance in the nursing field – she just didn’t know where to start.

When she landed a position as an RN instructor at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, however, someone reached out as a mentor. That experience would prove to be pivotal for her.

“Had it not been for that one individual investing in me and giving me guidance and direction and just being there to coach, I’m not sure what I would have done,” she said. “It was an authentic and naturally developed relationship that had some very beneficial outcomes for me. It propelled me into where I am in my career and improved my satisfaction in not just my job, but in my career. I was able to learn more about the organization and had an opportunity to be exposed through networking to different people and entities in the organization. It was an experience that was definitely beneficial to me not just professionally, but personally as well.”

As Rainey continued her work at the VA, she realized she was not alone. She saw firsthand the challenges that new nurses experienced when starting out in the organization and began unofficially polling nurses about their work experiences and challenges, asking them if they had ever been mentored or served as a mentor. Time and time again, she heard that many nurses – even seasoned nurses with years of experience under their belts – were not being mentored beyond their experience as a student nurse. They desired mentorship and wanted to advance in their careers but didn’t know exactly how to achieve that.

Burnout, frustration and dissatisfaction were also rampant as the demand on nurses continued to increase amid national nursing shortages during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Rainey wondered if mentorship could be the key to alleviating some of the burden on nurses.

She decided to explore that question more fully in the PhD program in the College of Nursing at the University of Missouri–St. Louis. In December, she earned her degree after successfully defending her dissertation, “Examining Mentoring as a Catalyst for Nurse Work Engagement and Professional Development.”

“I recognized that I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know what mentoring was or what it consisted of, so that research was helpful in identifying that there are phases, functions and a process of mentoring that were revealed in the literature,” Rainey said. “I was able to share that knowledge with nurses so that they will know how to develop, establish or sustain a mentoring relationship, as well as the characteristics of the mentor and the expectations of a formal mentoring relationship.”

Rainey used a quantitative study with correlational design to examine nurses’ perceptions of the relationship between mentoring activities, work engagement and professional development and whether or not demographic characteristics such as age, race, gender, years of experience or level of education influenced those perceptions. She recruited 142 RNs from the Veterans Administration to participate in the study.

She found that nurses perceived mentoring activities significantly impacted their professional development and work engagement and, more specifically, rated the career functions of mentoring higher in impacting their professional development and work engagement. The psychosocial functions of mentoring relationships were not as significant, however, and the demographic characteristics examined had no significant impact on the outcomes of professional development and work engagement for the nurses.

Rainey hopes that the executive leadership at the St. Louis VA Medical Center can use her research to identify strategic interventions and develop policies to implement and sustain mentorship among nurses, particularly those at the bedside, and identify additional barriers. She also sees the opportunity for others to conduct additional longitudinal studies on mentoring groups to further evaluate and assess the benefits of mentoring, especially for other populations or groups outsides of nurses. That said, she believes mentorship can play a particularly important role in nursing.

“According to this study, it would be beneficial for the general nursing population to have support and sustainment of mentoring programs for nurses, particularly those who are at the bedside,” she said. “Mentoring has been identified in the scholarly literature as a strategic intervention that promotes satisfaction among nurses, decreases burnout and turnover, and creates opportunities for transfer of knowledge, succession planning and leadership skills, to name a few.”

When mentorship develops organically from good working relationships, it can lack set goals or objectives. But being more intentional about developing a mentoring relationship, Rainey found, can have more impactful results.

“The biggest takeaway from me was learning about the processes and functions of mentoring, because following those processes – those phases and those functions – results in effective mentoring relationships,” she said. “For me, that was a barrier because I did not know what I didn’t know. But when you’re intentional about mentoring and helping others to develop professionally, understanding the process and the training that is required, the personality and characteristics of the mentor, matching the mentor with the mentee, and identifying those objectives and goals, is essential. That was a big part of what this education provided for me. Going forward, I am better able to help facilitate it and to teach others about the processes and the functions and what that means when we’re talking career and psychosocial dimensions of mentoring.”

Rainey, who also teaches as an adjunct instructor in the College of Nursing, said her experience in the PhD program was transformational. While she thought she knew about research going in, the program completely changed her perspective, equipping her with the adequate knowledge and training to develop research and collect and analyze data. She’s close to retirement but plans to continue using what she learned in the PhD program to conduct research and mentor fellow nurses, especially those working at the bedside.

“I’m really passionate about helping other nurses and advocating for other nurses, not just for their personal and individual satisfaction but also for promoting nursing and contributing to nurse science,” she said. “I’m passionate about helping other nurses in developing and finding ways to improve the work environment for nurses and decrease the problems and issues with critical nursing shortages and finding ways for them to advance and to be engaged. When engagement goes down, that ultimately has an impact on patient care and patient safety.”