This program assessment is a portfolio of illustrations via the evidence and the way in which I facilitate my learning and

assessment for Learner in my practice setting. It portrays as an educational portfolio; where record or data that provides evidence of a person during the process of learning experience in a field to enhance their knowledge (Harris et al, 2001). As author of this portfolio, let me tell a bit about my background career. I qualified as a staff nurse in January 2005 in one of the most famous private hospital in the city of Kuala Lumpur. I was based in outpatient clinic with more than 20 clinics made up of all experts, including two medical doctors, and I served as officer in charge of the clinic here. The staff nurses task here is to administer the injection for the patient as prescribed by the doctor, give Nebulizer as prescribed, make daily dressing to outpatient, do Stitch to Open (STO), iv line set if the patient is admitted to the hospital clinic, and etc., in accordance with procedure scope set by the hospital. Outpatient unit consists of a nurse manager, a supervisor nurse and a nurse coordinator to manage the clinic, which operates during office hours. While staff nurses consists of 5 persons, assisted by eight assistant nurses and also student nurses who come for their practical department. Coincidentally, our department recently received a junior nurse who has no working experience as a staff nurse. He is known as Miss CT (pseudonym), aged 23 years and studying in one of Kuala Lumpurs private college. I have attached the junior nurse information at the back of the assessment (appendix 1). Naturally, I was assigned as mentor to Miss CT and train him under my supervision. Our hospital organization uses mentoring as a basis for educating junior nurse, which became the hospitals compulsory routine, as alleged by Gopee (2008); currently the use of a mentor is the best facility widely practiced by students to ensure and provide appropriate knowledge base for nursing intervention and competencies in learners. As nurse coordinator or mentor in this department, I am responsible for ensuring student nurse and my learners can gain valuable practical experience in this department, especially the dressing procedure for outpatient clinic, as most of them are confused by the steps and ways to maintain Sterility until the end of procedure. As mention by Ogier (1981), the ward sister is responsible in providing the best learning environment in their department in its own manner. Through this I feel the responsibility in ensuring that they learn well in the method that is easy to understand. Therefore, I am interested in training my Learner on the dressing procedure. Firstly, meeting face to face with Miss CT in a discussion room and get acquainted with each other. This is known as the Initiation Phase, where the good relationship between mentors and learners begin in influencing and raising the learning quality. At this stage, pressure should be avoided and commitment to further strengthens the relationship through this Mentorship program (Cahill 1996, Morton-Cooper and Palmer 2000). I gave Miss CT the overview of this

Mentorship program and explained its goal. Upon agreement, Miss CT will sign the learning contract between Miss CT and me (appendix 2). After obtaining consent, I will make a strategic learning plan (appendix 3) for 21 days starting January 2nd, 2012 to January 20th, 2012 to ensure that the Mentorship program goal is implemented successfully. During this stage, I will observe Miss CT level of knowledge on the dressing procedure through the interview and try to uncover Miss CT pattern of learning through learning style created by Honey and Mumford (2000) to identify four learning style that is activist, reflectors, theorist and pragmatists with using 80 questionnaire version (appendix 4); and the result shows that he has a pragmatist learning approach. Pragmatist is an initiative to find new ideas and to review and practice. I was excited to know that Miss CT is in the pragmatist learning style category, as this will facilitate my mentorship works and believe this program goals will be achieved with hard work from me and Miss CT. Before moving to the next plan, I need to educate my learners with adequate knowledge to provide policy and guideline in maintaining Sterility procedure to Miss CT (appendix 5); for preparation of sufficient knowledge to Miss CT is important in applying critical thinking and rational thinking in teaching him each step of doing the dressing procedure. By encouraging critical thinking and rationale thinking for each step can facilitate miss ct to understand the procedure easier. The use of critical thinking and rational thinking is my main strategy in teaching all learners under my supervision. They need to know who, why, when, where and how on everything about the dressing procedure. I always encourage Miss CT to ask questions on what he doesnt understand or uncertain about information explained to him. This portfolio is not simply a random collection of information, but rather a very systematic, in which, I explain and direct Miss CT to make learning diaries in accordance with the program time course (appendix 6). Reflective diaries are important in building positive professional attitudes, knowledge and skills in providing benefits to learners (Harris et al, 2001). As his mentor, I encourage him to write about the experiences and feelings he gets every day from each plan provided to him. Through these learning diaries, I will know his level of understanding and able to see the effectiveness of my teaching. I will monitor every three days to ensure that he always update his learning diaries. Presentation on the dressing procedure for Sterility among staff is also given to refresh their memory on the procedure, and highlights the new principles issued by the Malaysia Government Ministry. I am responsible in giving this presentation to all staff nurse with Miss CT as an observer because he will also be given the responsibility to give presentation to the student nurse on the third week under my supervision. Through this way, he would be more prepared to give his presentation to the student nurse after seeing my presentation, and that he can hear and understand the discussion between the staff nurse and I inside the room. I also do dressing demonstrations in front of them to see details of each step that they dont understand; because each step has its own rationale and reason.

As each plan is arranged every week, this would display learners weaknesses, so every week I will motivate Miss CT based on his weakness to provide Miss CT the necessary support. This is because; the additional mentor support is the key in providing and maintaining effective communication and facilitation assessment of Mentorship Programs (WAG, 2002). As the facilitator, I see that Miss CT is someone who can easily understand every theory taught, but a little confuse with every step of the dressing procedure. I advised him that, all this confusion will be solved during the second week in session with theory and practical along with the rational and critical thinking in the dressing procedure on a mannequin first. When confidence is gained, he will do the real dressing to patients under my supervision. He is happy because I understand and always give him the spirit to learn more about this procedure. His worries have lessened now and cannot wait to go into the next session. On January 9th, 2012 the second week session begins, and is known as the second phase or the working phase. This stage is a very active phase because learners can carry themselves better and start taking more responsibility as a nurse. Their level of confident increased, and the relationship between learners and facilitator closer compared with the initial phase (Morton-Cooper and Palmer, 2000). This stage will start by giving orientation to learners on unit and department, routine clinic progress, the introduction of the log book in practical area, and the equipment for dressing procedure in this department. I also do a staff meeting to introduce Miss CT to all the staff in order to help reduce Miss CT anxiety to enter the clinical area, and provide him comfort to start his learning session and to promote the learning environment in this department (Wallace, 2003). Provide briefings on the job description and to give each a copy (appendix 7) in order to remember their responsibilities, view nurses code of conduct and I try to emphasize on the principles of effective communication and relationship among staff as important in learning and working, with hope all staff to work together in helping Miss CT to learn all the procedure in this department. I admit there is some staff that doesnt offer much tutoring and even scold if Miss CT asks questions. The majority of senior staff has their egos in exchanging greetings with the junior nurse. Any little mistake made by the junior nurse will eventually be scolded, thus make them afraid to ask anything to the senior nurse. Junior nurse can only rely on their mentors. However, I tried solving this problem together with the sister department and the nurse manager to have the counseling sessions with all senior nurse. They admitted their mistake, everything is better solved and Miss CT wont have to be upset about it anymore. Recommendation from Hyatt, Brown and Lipp (2008), mentor should work closely with junior nurse and ensure they are always together in the clinical area to identify any learners weaknesses to enhance their learning opportunities and understanding the procedure. Therefore, Im always with him on a daily basis to guide Miss CT on the wound dressing so he can do the

dressing on his own. Everything should be under my observation or senior staff only. By using critical and rational thinking I taught him on nursing care basics like the dressing procedure, he quickly learns each step of doing the dressing to the patient. In nursing, the nurse is also responsible for providing health education to patients, for example in terms of wound care, nutritional aspects to promote wound healing, and so forth. I encourage Miss CT to do a lot of reading in providing health education to patients for a variety of questions to be asked by patients about the health education. Having finished the dressing procedure and health education to patient, Miss CT is required to do some documentation about the patient, especially on the patient's wound. First, I teach Miss CT how to assess the patient's wound condition, if there are wounds that he is not sure how to do the assessment, he would ask me and I will answer by linking a couple of questions to him about the wound. I first asked the patient's permission for me to teach Miss CT on the wound. Even patients are willing to participate in the study. I have taught him all theories on wound assessment model (appendix 8) during the first week to identify the types of wounds, such as signs of wound infection, beautiful wounds, wounds that requires disloughing, the type with dead tissue in the wound, wounds that require specialists treatment and others. This will make it easy for him to identify which type of wounds and create documentation in patient files. I remind Miss CT that all this needs to be done in an orderly and structured manner for all this documentation is the patient's black and white, and is valid for court if necessary. This reminds Miss CT to be more careful in making any documentation. Facilitating learning and assessment is ongoing as planned, the next my plan is to facilitate learners to prepare their power point slides in power point presentation as an effective and popular way to provide education to audience (Gopee, 2008). This is proven through my practice setting, continuous nursing education (CNE), held every Wednesday for an hour through power point presentation. In his slides, I encourage him to provide the pictures associated with dressing such as image equipment for dressing, a good wound, and infected wound, gangrene wound and so on to attract audience to see and hear the presentation. As his facilitator I must ensure that each power point slides have solid and clear content because mentor has to provide support to learners to produce professional learners (Ali and Panther 2008), especially when dealing with student nurse when giving the presentation later in the third week. At the end of the second week, I distribute the assessment form to the staff nurse in outpatient clinic to carry out assessment and to evaluate during Miss CTs working phase in this department. This is because, Neary (2001) says that assessment process involving more than one will reduce biased decisions or decisions that threaten them, thus I involve staff in this department to assess him as well as they work together every day since the mentoring program begins.

In addition, through this I can get a second opinion from the staff here about him while on duty. These are the steps in doing a fair assessment to a person in any aspect. All staff nurse in the department was informed that the assessment of this form would be collected at the end of week, which is the third week so that they can fill the form before the assessment date for submission. This mentorship process continues until the third week which ends the Mentorship program. This week, my presentation started with Miss CT because I am convince that he understands each learning process taught to him during the first and second week. I need to make sure that he really understands what is delivered to the student nurse through this presentation. Because when they understand, it is easy for him to explain every step of the dressing procedure to the student nurse. I hope he can deliver this presentation with confident and enthusiasm, as this begins his first encounter with the public. This presentation is evidence in the portfolio and is important during the assessment process because through this presentation, will indirectly be a form of discussion (Harris et al, 2001) where the student nurse will ask questions to Miss CT if there is confusion. Miss CT will answer and I will assist if the answer is not clear, and at the same time, will also ask him questions. Through this, I can assess Miss CTs level of understanding on the dressing procedure clearly and accurately. On the day of the presentation, he did well despite feeling nervous occasionally, but I am glad he is able to control it very well and I believe he can. The student nurse presence post as evidence of their attendance. (appendix 9). The evaluation process begins with the log book (appendix 10) in which Miss CT must do a dressing procedure at least 5 times a day and take notes on the condition of the wound. Log book was introduced to Miss CT in the second week beginning January 9th, 2012 to 20 January 20th, 2012. Each procedure was done under my supervision or staff nurse involved. With this log book, I see his effort in finding dressing cases to fill up the cross in the log book. Miss CT did not have any problem in finding a dressing procedure as many people came to do the dressing every day with variety types of wound and conditions. The next evaluation is in Miss CT learning diaries, which should always be up to date on every condition throughout the Mentorship program for the period of 3 weeks (appendix 6). Notes made from his learning diaries shows that hes beginning to have self-awareness of the importance of knowledge, attitude, and skills. Furthermore, evaluation are based on the assessment forms done by the staff nurse at the outpatient clinic (appendix 11), and the results or feedback from them shows that he is able to perform well in maintaining dressing Sterility procedure from beginning to end, but needs to do more practice to become a norm. To further enhance my level of learning through the Mentorship program, I gave him the evaluation form from mentee to mentor (appendix 13). Through this I will know how effective my teaching method to my learners is. On the last day of the Mentorship program, I called Miss CT into the room prepared to provide him the evaluation result and feedback. Results showed

that Miss CT is always advancing day to day due of the effects and results from encouragement, motivation, support and advice from me and the staff around him. I'm happy because this Mentorship program achieved its objectives and I give him advice and motivation to continue this excellence in the future to becoming a more professional in all areas of nursing. He received it with joy and promise to be better. This program ended with a good relationship and positive impact on me and Miss CT in different situations, and is called the termination phase, also known as the final phase in the Mentorship program (Morton-Cooper and Palmer, 2000). Therefore current or future, the Mentorship program is very effective in creating a professional nursing staff in spite of the values instilled and taught through this program. It is effective and relevant to the practice of nursing in the world and also practiced in higher education institutions and the business world. Despite educational differences, it is unanimous agreed, in creating a professional staff with the concept of mentoring in the training of new staff at their institution because it is a very effective concept. Principles and goals of mentoring is to enhance leadership skills, advancing the vision protgs, and for the future of nursing as a profession (Owen and Patton, 2003). This proves that facilitating learning and assessment in practice will be more effective by cooperation between mentors, learners, environment, staff and management is the key to sustained professionalism and to achieving job satisfaction.