Nurses nurturing nurses — what sounds like a good idea recently became a reality when the Academy of Medical-Surgical Nurses, Pitman, N.J., launched its N3 program to retain new nurses with personal and professional mentoring.

Seeing that up to half of all new graduates end up leaving their first nursing job within a year, AMSN designed its mentoring program as a research project, complete with an evaluation process that will measure nurse confidence, job satisfaction, and intent to stay or leave the profession. AMSN will report the results next year.

The program is being field-tested in more than 20 institutions nationwide and, according to N3 Coordinator Kathleen Reeves, RN, requests to participate are accelerating as more people hear about the program. “The mentees receive one-on-one nurturing from a role model they trust, and mentors reap satisfaction from the relationship as well. Everyone wins: the participants, the institution, the patients, and the entire nursing profession,” she says.

“This is an ongoing research project,” says Cecelia Gatson Grindel, PhD, RN, who heads up the research aspects of the program. “We hope to be able to share information that will help reverse the trend of the nursing shortage and show that there is a caring, effective solution to new graduate nurses leaving their jobs.”

For more information, go to www.medsurgnurse.org, call (856) 256-2323, or e-mail amsn@ajj.com.