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The purpose of this study explores the perspective of key informants (educators, preceptors and former students) of the Kintampo Project, on the perceived effectiveness, gains and challenges in delivering this large-scale training innovation in Ghana. The problem of mental health care neglect in Ghana is gradually improving. The Kintampo Project which trained mental health workers in Ghana has played a critical role in increasing access to mental health care.

This qualitative study explored participants' perspectives on the Kintampo Project in three broad areas: perceived effectiveness, gains and challenges. In all, 17 interviews were conducted with former students, preceptors and educators from the project. The interviews were digitally audio-recorded, transcribed, coded and analysed using deductive and thematic methods.

The participants perceived the project to have been successful in increasing the number of mental health workers in Ghana. The project provided a route for career progression for those involved. However, the Kintampo Project faced accreditation issues, low recognition, improper integration and remuneration of trained staff in the Ghana Health Service. This study points to the fact that the sustainability of mental health training in Ghana can be obstructed, because of this career path being less attractive. Further research is needed to explore how best to achieve sustainability of similar mental health innovations.

This paper shares the views of participants in the Kintampo Project.

This paper reviews the literature of formal mentoring programs in organizational settings. Additionally, the components of mentoring, how it works, and how it can be implemented in an organization is addressed. Further this paper also proposes that formal mentoring is possible in organizations. Formal mentoring will be shown to be less effective than informal mentoring. Furthermore, it will be shown that formal organizational mentoring can be effective to meet the needs for all employees to have the opportunity to be mentored, to learn from the wisdom, experience and mistakes of others, and to increase the protégé’s career opportunities.

The purpose of this paper is to share insights, research findings and discuss key issues related to graduate experiences with transnational nursing education (TNE).

The authors used a qualitative approach and sampled national and international nurse graduates to identify challenges and best operating practices in cross-border nursing program facilitation.

This research paper has provided a platform for graduates to lend their voices to the promotion of effective cross-border nursing education delivery and suggests that although international collaborations endeavor to maintain high academic standards in TNE, there is still a need to re-engineer, revise and adapt curricular content, learning, teaching and assessment practices to aid the nursing student.

Identified challenges affecting the facilitation and delivery of cross-border nursing education programs can act as levers to improving service quality of present and future cross-border programs to the nursing student. This will assist future nursing students to recognize culture shock and embrace their decision to pursue nursing.

The experience of being involved in TNE for nursing students may not be that much different than students of other disciplines. While not able to be generalized to the entire population, the reports by the nursing students in this sample appear to be valuable and worthwhile to continue supporting and encouraging other TNE opportunities.

This paper explores cross-border nursing education experiences from national and international perspectives. The authors were able to explore inherent TNE challenges from diverse population and cultural backgrounds.

The purpose of this paper is to study, examine and apply lean management principles to the curriculum revision and internship placement process in an academic program at an institution of higher education.

This paper consists of two sections. The first section reviews the literature on lean principles, lean tools, nonvalue-added activities and the application of lean methodology to academic settings. The second section presents a case study, where a team of faculty members applied lean principles to the process of curriculum revision and internship placement at an academic institution.

Lean principles can be successfully applied to curricular revision and the internship placement process. By applying the concepts of value, identification of value stream, removal of wasteful activities to achieve flow and creation of a pull-based system, faculty and program leaders can streamline processes at academic institutions. Furthermore, ongoing data collection helps to foster the culture of continuous improvement and ensure that processes are revisited and adapted to meet the needs of customers.

This paper is of value to faculty members and college administrators interested in applying lean principles to academic processes. Usage of lean methodology may lead to the identification and elimination of waste in curriculum and the field placement process.

This manuscript can provide a structure for the application of lean in academic processes at institutions of higher education.

The purpose of this study was to explore inter-professional clinicians’ perspectives on resident leadership in the context of inter-professional teams and to identify a definition for leadership in the clinical context. In 2015, CanMEDS changed the title of one of the core competencies from manager to leader. The shift in language was perceived by some as returning to traditional hierarchical and physician-dominant structures. The resulting uncertainty has resulted in a call to action to not only determine what physician leadership is but to also determine how to teach and assess it.

Focus groups and follow-up individual interviews were conducted with 23 inter-professional clinicians from three pediatric clinical service teams at a large, Canadian tertiary-level rehabilitation hospital. Qualitative thematic analysis was used to inductively analyze the data.

Data analysis resulted in one overarching theme: leadership is collaborative – and three related subthemes: leadership is shared; leadership is summative; and conceptualizations of leadership are shifting.

Not all members of the three inter-professional teams were able to attend the focus group sessions because of scheduling conflicts. Participation of additional clinicians could have, therefore, affected the results of this study. The study was conducted locally at a single rehabilitation hospital, among Canadian pediatric clinicians, which highlights the need to explore conceptualization of leadership across different contexts.

There is an evident need to prepare physicians to be leaders in both their daily clinical and academic practices. Therefore, more concerted efforts are required to develop leadership skills among residents. The authors postulate that continued integration of various inter-professional disciplines during the early phases of training is essential to foster collaborative leadership and trust.

The results of this study suggest that inter-professional clinicians view clinical leadership as collaborative and fluid and determined by the fit between tasks and team member expertise. Mentorship is important for increasing the ability of resident physicians to develop collaborative leadership roles within teams. The authors propose a collaborative definition of clinical leadership based on the results of this study: a shared responsibility that involves facilitation of dialog; the integration of perspectives and expertise; and collaborative planning for the purpose of exceptional patient care.

The concept of civic engagement, defined independently of engagement in political, social, or vocational organizations connects the parallel concept of followership to civic engagement with two kinds of follower motivation emerging: mission-oriented and leader- oriented. The mission-driven follower “owns” the cause and supports it with an ongoing, sustainable energy, while the leader-driven follower participates based on esteem for the leader. In the latter case, the leader must continually renew the follower’s engagement through direct requests and exhortation. This research has identified an area of emergent opportunity in the leadership and followership literature, conceptualizing civic engagement as most significantly motivated by mission-driven followership. Practically, mission-driven followers should be sought out and encouraged to volunteer because they support the mission and are more likely to stay with the organization through leadership changes. Theoretically, the addition of a quantitative analysis of mission-driven and leader-driven followership contributes to the emerging scholarship on followership.

While the common suggestion in leader-member exchange (LMX) research is that there is a strong relationship between LMX and performance, a closer look at these studies reveal that the performance measures in the majority of studies are primarily subjective in nature such as performance reviews. Relatively few studies examine the LMX-objective performance (OP) relationship. The findings from those studies are not consistent subjective performance studies. While most LMX studies are conducted in a work environment, this paper adds to the literature by examining this in a higher education. The findings indicated a significantly positive regression coefficient between Professional Respect and midterm grades. Based on the results, the authors introduce the idea of the “peer leader effect” and discussed the development of peer leaders.

Work-based placements are central to the university education of allied health and social work (AHSW) students. As a result of COVID-19, the clinical learning environment of students' work-based placements was dramatically altered resulting in numerous documented challenges. This inter-disciplinary study aimed to evaluate AHSW students' perceptions and experiences of completing a diverse range of work-based placements during COVID-19.

This study was a mixed-method inter-disciplinary study using an anonymous online survey consisting of multiple choice, Likert scale and free text questions. Mixed-methods design supported amalgamation of insights from positivism and interpretivism perspectives and enabled research questions to be answered with both breadth and depth. 436 students were invited to participate who were enrolled in five AHSW educational university programmes: speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, radiation therapy and social work. Data collected was analysed using both quantitative (descriptive and analytical statistics) and qualitative (thematic analysis) methods.

118 students participated (response rate: 27%) representing a range of AHSW disciplines who attended diverse placement settings. While there was extensive disruption in the learning environment leading to increased levels of stress and concern, a triad of individual and systemic supports helped to ensure positive work-based placement experiences and student success for the majority of AHSW students during COVID-19: (1) university preparation and communication; (2) placement site and supervisor support; and (3) students' resilience and capacity to adapt to a changed work-place environment.

This inter-disciplinary study reports the work-based placement experiences from the professional education programmes of healthcare students during the COVID-19 pandemic, giving a unique view of their perspectives and learning during this unprecedented crisis.

There is a need for higher education to produce graduates who are motivated to transfer learning into the workplace. Motivated graduates are work-ready and associated with increased performance. Presently, the research field around motivation to transfer learning by students in higher education is not clear and is inconsistent.

This scoping review provides an overview of the characteristics of the literature, including key concepts, recommendations and gaps based on eight published articles on the motivation of students in higher education to transfer learning.

The results reflected a research field, which focused primarily on the influence of specific factors, namely student characteristics, educational design, the workplace environment, and on higher education students' motivation to transfer learning. The lack of a shared conceptual definition of motivation to transfer learning in higher education appears to influence the description of the results from the included studies. Most of the previous studies applied rigorous research designs.

This seemingly stunted research field related to higher education students' motivation to transfer learning needs to be amplified to influence the development of work-ready graduates from higher education. Approaches towards including all elements of motivation, expanding to other fields in higher education, including low-income countries, may be a proximal step in enhancing the trajectory of this research field.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the influence of peer mentoring on critical care nursing students’ learning outcomes in critical care units.

A qualitative exploratory research design was used to conduct the study. Ten critical care nursing students were recruited from critical care units in the five private and two public hospitals. Descriptions of their experiences were gained through individual face-to-face interviews.

The study reinforces peer mentoring as a vital strategy in helping the critical care nursing students to attain their learning outcomes. However, peer mentoring was not consistent in all hospitals and there were no structured support systems to ensure that peer mentoring was formalized. Making peer mentoring a vital component in the registered nurses core competencies would enable efficiency and guarantee the viability of peer mentoring.

Mentors for the critical care nursing students were not included in the study.

The study identified a need for incorporating a formalized mentorship programme into the core competencies of all qualified critical care nurses, the unit mentor to familiarise themselves with the prescribed learning objectives of the critical care nursing student and an allocation of supernumerary time for the critical care nursing student and mentors to allow for formal mentoring responsibilities to take place.

The study reinforces peer mentoring as a vital strategy in helping the critical care nursing students to attain their learning outcomes and conscietises registered nurses of their responsibility as mentors.