Three days, eleven presentations, two workshops, three foreign mentors. A conference titled Introducing the Role of the International Mentor into the Guidance of Doctoral Students of Nursing Program was held at the Faculty of Health Sciences of UP. Valuable advice and recommendations were given to the students by mentors from the British Northumbria University - Professors Amanda Clarke and Alison Steven and Associate Professor Peta Jane Greaves.
The international nursing experts, in their mentoring role, heard a total of eleven presentations over the three days, in which students from the first year of the PhD Nursing programme presented their research designs. The upper year students then presented their partial research focus and results. Each presentation was followed by a discussion in which the foreign mentors together with the guarantor of the study programme, Vice-Dean Helena Kisvetrova, evaluated the presented research and provided recommendations for the next stage of research implementation within the dissertation. The students could also consult with the foreign mentors the working versions of their upcoming publications.
"The conference also included two workshops. In the first one, Amanda Clarke focused on how to prepare a successful publication, and in the second one, Alison Steven introduced the students to different qualitative approaches used in nursing research," mentioned Helena Kisvetrová.
The international mentors commented very positively on the level of research designs and research results presented by the students during the conference. They also positively evaluated the topicality of the chosen topics of the dissertations, which mostly had an interdisciplinary overlap. "I see the biggest benefit of this conference in the fact that it gave our students the opportunity to get valuable advice and recommendations on their research and upcoming publications from foreign experts, to establish personal contact with them as well as getting a liaison contact to a specific person for further consultation of their work and possibly for future cooperation after the completion of their doctoral studies," Helena Kisvetrová emphasized.
The cooperation between the Faculty of Health Sciences of UP and Northumbria University will continue next year. The next year's conference is planned, as well as a visit of students of the doctoral programme in nursing from this British university.