Abstract
Background: Clinical mentors play an important role in the development of knowledge and the acquisition of competencies of different health professionals. The success of the entire mentoring process also depends on the professional and personal characteristics of the clinical mentor. The purpose of this study was to identify which professional and personal characteristics of clinical mentors are relevant to physiotherapy (PHT) and social gerontology (SG) students.
 Methods: The web survey was performed between January 20 and May 15, 2018, using the adapted version of the nursing clinical teacher effectiveness inventory. The final sample consisted of 100 PHT and SG students from one of the Slovenian Universities.
 Results: The competencies “explains clearly” (p ˂ 0.001) and “takes responsibility of own actions” (p = 0.023) were statistically significantly more relevant to PHT students than to the SG students. The competencies “explains clearly” (p ˂ 0.001), “demonstrates clinical skill and judgment” (p = 0.033), “takes responsibility of own actions” (p = 0.023), and “is self-critical” (p = 0.023), were statistically significantly more relevant to PHT than to the SG students, while the statements “discusses current development in his/her field” (p = 0.002), “communicates expectations of students” (p = 0.029), “demonstrates empathy” (p = 0.037), “demonstrates enthusiasm” (p = 0.005), and “has a good sense of humor” (p = 0.005) were statistically significantly more relevant to SG students.
 Conclusion: The contrast in responses reflects the differences in the nature of both professions: The predominantly instrumental nature of PHT and the predominantly expressive nature of SG.
Highlights
Mentoring is an elusive term that has existed for years in many disciplines [1]
The possibilities of the implementation of clinical practice mentoring in the education process of health-care professionals are as follows: (a) A school mentor teaches skills by being present at the department for the duration of the clinical training, (b) the school mentor is present in the clinical environment every day, but only for a limited period of time, and (c) the school mentor is present only occasionally, for example, before the beginning and at the end of the clinical training and in case of potential problems
The results of our study show that both groups of students appreciate the mentor’s expert knowledge (Table 2: Characteristic “demonstrates a breadth of knowledge,” by the PHTs ranked as the 2nd; and by the social gerontology (SG) ranked as the 1st in the category “competence in the area of expertise”)
Summary
Mentoring is an elusive term that has existed for years in many disciplines [1]. The general purpose of mentoring is to offer support to the less experienced, young individual [2], to acquire the appropriate knowledge and competencies for the exercise of the profession, and to empower students for a81,9(56,7
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