Hi Lindsay,

After reading your discussion on mentoring and interprofessional collaboration I can understand your concerns and frustrations. There are several great points you made regarding inconsistency in interprofessional collaboration as well and mentoring new hires. As an individual who has worked in the Emergency Department close to two years I can truly say that interprofessional collaboration is critical to get patients the quality care and outcomes they deserve. Unfortunately, at times I can relate to the frustrations you have when dealing with the interdisciplinary team. Similar to your situation, there is no clear collaboration system and at times it feels as if there is no collaboration at all when it comes to patient care. As you mentioned, getting a hold of providers when questions or concerns arise can be difficult. They are often times busy or make you feel like your questions or concerns are not important. The latter of which can be very demeaning and frustrating. However, the moments where there is a strong working and trusting relationship has been the most rewarding.

You also mentioned the issue of mentoring to new employees. This is very critical in producing safe and strong employees that work well with others. Mentoring and creating an environment that is positive for new employees is critical to employee retention as well. As an individual who was a new graduate in the ED, I was lucky enough to be involved in a mentorship program. It allowed me to see a light at the end of the tunnel and become the nurse I am today.

Hello Lindsay, what a great observation on mentoring and interprofessional collaboration inconsistencies. As you mentioned, physicians and mid-level professionals miscommunicate a lot due to different collaboration models. Different communication models used by organizations and protocols in each department have led to miscommunications; we can have a standardized expected form of communication throughout the organizations. Nurse practitioners need to collaborate with doctors to get their job done. Working with physicians who seem to be busy collaborating care with you must be hard. Doctors tend to be happening all the time; however, when it comes to patient care, such as changes in treatment and plan of care of patients, they should be willing to work with you. With all these hindrances, the patient suffers, or care is delayed. It’s been challenging for new NP to work with doctors due to a lack of trust. Building a trusting relationship as we work together is essential, but it is challenging when this is your first job working with them. As you suggested, at the end of the working day, there should be a huddle of doctors to recap the issues during the day; this would give nurse practitioners to raise their problems that need signing off.

Lack of mentoring also has been a massive issue in our health care s; system. New employees are left to drown and o;n their own trying to navigate the new systems and learning new skills on their own to; perform their jobs. As mentioned, the shortage has led to cutting training time, yet expectations are left on new employees to do their job correctly with fewer resources and knowledge on how to do it. This has led to improper patient care, errors, patient safety issues am injuries. There should be mandatory training of new nurses for a long time so our patients can receive good quality care.