Doctoral Nursing Students' and Graduates' Lived Experience of a Virtual Mentoring Program and Building upon the Mentoring Experience: A Phenomenological Study

Faculty mentoring of doctoral nursing students is at a critical juncture, as a lack of mentors and experienced researchers exist to assist the next generation of nurse educators. Also, few schools of nursing offer the mentoring support necessary to further the research trajectories of doctorally prepared nurse educators, which further compounds the current deficiency of nursing education research. The purpose of this research was to gain insight from doctoral students and alumni regarding their lived experiences within a formal virtual mentoring program as well as how mentoring has assisted with their professional lives and the mentoring of others. Previous research has addressed only the lived experience as a current doctoral student of a virtual mentoring program. The four themes that emerged were Formalizing the Mentoring, Building the Relationship, Adapting to the Doctoral Role, and Mentoring Others. Additional research is needed to fully explore virtual mentoring within research-focused doctoral nursing educatio