| Sumario: | Background: Mentoring increases academic outcomes and retention. However, research is lacking in the area of mentoring and transitioning military medics and corpsmen to the level of baccalaureate-prepared registered nurse. Purpose: To investigate the correlation between academic performance and nurse-to-student nurse mentoring among military and veteran corpsmen and medics. Methods: Pre and post GPA were correlated after a mentoring intervention for military medics and corpsmen, the experimental group. A secondary activity log analysis of self-selected veteran BSN students investigated mentoring activities and their relationship to pre and post GPA. Nurse mentors for the study were recruited through snowball sampling (n=20), by asking current military nursing students to inform their military chain of command of potential nurse mentors who would be suitable to work with military nursing students. Prerequisites for mentors comprised current or prior military experience as a professional nurse or, alternatively, non-military civilian nurses with at least 3 years of experience. Findings: Military students who participated in the formalized mentoring program (n= 5) did not have statistically significant higher GPAs than peers who did not participate (n=6). However, secondary findings revealed that mentor tutoring seemed to be indicative of higher academic performance. Discussion: It is unclear whether other non-tutorial forms of mentoring (eg, academic, personal and career counseling, or military career mentoring) impact student performance. Conclusion: Military corpsman and medic nursing students can benefit from mentoring, particularly for nursing content-related tutoring.
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