[madwife2002]

Originally Posted by willdgate

maybe you should send an annoymous mail or email to the nurse manager about the staff behavior. Just food for thought

I dont believe any manager worth his/her salt would respond to an annonymous letter. Just my opinion, what do others think

[VickyRN]

After a particularly rotten clinical experience on the previously mentioned toxic unit, one of our students sent an anonymous letter to the nurse manager, DON, and nurse recruiter at the hospital (this happens to be our local hospital, the home base for our ADN program). The student, acting entirely on her own, wrote a very professional letter and spelled out in no uncertain terms, why our students were avoiding working at this hospital upon graduation and how very unprofessional and unfriendly these nurses were acting. The letter was taken very seriously and the nurses were severely disciplined. However, the unit remains toxic, just less so, and MOST of our graduate nurses are still avoiding this facility like the plague.

[canoehead]

If I got disciplined over an anonymous letter it would make my attitude worse, not better, and especially towards student nurses, if it was clear that's where the comments were coming from. Who wants to be accused without the opportunity to answer back. It's cowardly.

[Daytonite]

Originally Posted by willdgate

maybe you should send an annoymous mail or email to the nurse manager about the staff behavior. Just food for thought

Originally Posted by madwife2002

I dont believe any manager worth his/her salt would respond to an annonymous letter. Just my opinion, what do others think

I agree that a good manager wouldn't respond to an anonymous letter, but I've got to say that you have to look to the leadership as one of the reasons conditions like this exist on units in the first place. When a manager permits, or isn't aware of employees like this, it only creates an environment for more of the same to fester. Particularly, if one or more of the offensive nurses is very aggressive and defiant of authority. They drive well-intentioned, well-meaning, inexperienced managers off as their power grows. One of these management positions is how I got my first break in becoming a nurse manager. There were two RNs on the unit making it miserable for everyone else. I talked to them privately until I was blue in the face, but when my back was turned they were up to their old, nasty ways. My first break came when one of them botched up a code blue. I got documentation up the wazoo and did all I could to help the DON get her butt out of there. That's when I found that the DON was sympathetic to this nurses situation! I felt like all the air had been let out of my balloon. They were in a perfect position to fire this nurse and they weren't willing to do that. So, like many others, shortly after that, I quit too. I can't work my behind off if I'm not going to be supported.

Another point I wanted to make is that when you have a hospital with a bad reputation that gets around, new grads don't want to go there for jobs. Eventually, if the management there is really part of the problem and is arrogant enough, they'll stop opening their doors to the nursing students for clinicals, won't they?

[VickyRN]

Originally Posted by canoehead

If I got disciplined over an anonymous letter it would make my attitude worse, not better, and especially towards student nurses, if it was clear that's where the comments were coming from. Who wants to be accused without the opportunity to answer back. It's cowardly.

The very best thing for us would be to not send students to this unit anymore - I won't go into the details, but some very disturbing incidents have occurred and keep occurring.

[Tweety]

Originally Posted by VickyRN

The very best thing for us would be to not send students to this unit anymore - I won't go into the details, but some very disturbing incidents have occurred and keep occurring.

I hope someone from your school confronted them as to why you left and weren't coming back, and that the only feedback wasn't just an anonymous student letter.

Sometimes an anynonmous note makes the person feel better, so I can understand that.

[VickyRN]

Originally Posted by Tweety

I hope someone from your school confronted them as to why you left and weren't coming back, and that the only feedback wasn't just an anonymous student letter.

Sometimes an anynonmous note makes the person feel better, so I can understand that.

Believe me, there has been MUCH communication between the school faculty and nurse manager/ hospital DON. And while they state they're sympathetic and supportive of our school, they simply cannot or will not control these nurses and let all sorts of atrocious behavior continue.

[discobunni]

Thank you all so very much for sharing your thoughts and experience.
I understand the frustration and venting... that comes with any job. I've only been on 2 different units, and I never pictured the "behind the scenes", as a student I admit I am a bit nieve. The things that did bother me were the comments being made w/in earshot of pts and familes (one nurse I was assisting said "I hope this pt is DNR!" about a very ill lady who's daughter was standing in the doorway), lots of cursing too around the nurses station... Eff this & that, she's a pain in the arse..... I mean, anyone could walk by and people were visiting in adjacent rooms. One pt even told me he could hear everything that was said at the nurses station! (how embarrassing!)
Another example, the nurses visiting (not about pt care, but personal stuff) while one pt called for help several X throughout the day and all she wanted was assistance to the restroom. After she had soiled her bed, I responded to her calls, since noone else was and helped her to the restroom, where she was able to relieve herself w/out messing the bed.
Pts asking for pain medication, who were in obvious pain, and were told 2-3X someone would come... and they were not necessarily busy, but talking about this & that! I was horrified. What if I had my foot amputated, or had fluid overload and a bowel obstruction, and the nurses just poo-pooed it until they got around to it b/c they were too busy yakking. An RT telling a family to "just sue me", b/c you ain't gonna get anything. A CNA literally scrubbing an excoriated elderly patient between her legs while she cried out in pain. A nurse giving an injection w/an 18 gauge needle b/c there weren't any smaller ones in the server next to the room. UGH, I could go on.
Anyway, these were the kind of things that gave me a very heavy feeling in my stomach. I don't feel like I could really say much... because I don't work there, and I'm "just a student". BTW, I'm an online student, so I'm at the unit alone w/a preceptor, so no instructor is there, ever. Granted, yes there are a couple of good nurses on these units, and I've mentioned my concerns to my preceptors. Anyway, I don't want any part of this type of behavior! Venting behind closed doors is one thing... but being professional and genuinely caring about a person is another....my opinion anyway.
I just wanted some feedback on those who've been in the field a while, and am very grateful for your responses, to get me thinking.
Angela

[madwife2002]

Originally Posted by discobunni

Thank you all so very much for sharing your thoughts and experience.
I understand the frustration and venting... that comes with any job. I've only been on 2 different units, and I never pictured the "behind the scenes", as a student I admit I am a bit nieve. The things that did bother me were the comments being made w/in earshot of pts and familes (one nurse I was assisting said "I hope this pt is DNR!" about a very ill lady who's daughter was standing in the doorway), lots of cursing too around the nurses station... Eff this & that, she's a pain in the arse..... I mean, anyone could walk by and people were visiting in adjacent rooms. One pt even told me he could hear everything that was said at the nurses station! (how embarrassing!)
Another example, the nurses visiting (not about pt care, but personal stuff) while one pt called for help several X throughout the day and all she wanted was assistance to the restroom. After she had soiled her bed, I responded to her calls, since noone else was and helped her to the restroom, where she was able to relieve herself w/out messing the bed.
Pts asking for pain medication, who were in obvious pain, and were told 2-3X someone would come... and they were not necessarily busy, but talking about this & that! I was horrified. What if I had my foot amputated, or had fluid overload and a bowel obstruction, and the nurses just poo-pooed it until they got around to it b/c they were too busy yakking. An RT telling a family to "just sue me", b/c you ain't gonna get anything. A CNA literally scrubbing an excoriated elderly patient between her legs while she cried out in pain. A nurse giving an injection w/an 18 gauge needle b/c there weren't any smaller ones in the server next to the room. UGH, I could go on.
Anyway, these were the kind of things that gave me a very heavy feeling in my stomach. I don't feel like I could really say much... because I don't work there, and I'm "just a student". BTW, I'm an online student, so I'm at the unit alone w/a preceptor, so no instructor is there, ever. Granted, yes there are a couple of good nurses on these units, and I've mentioned my concerns to my preceptors. Anyway, I don't want any part of this type of behavior! Venting behind closed doors is one thing... but being professional and genuinely caring about a person is another....my opinion anyway.
I just wanted some feedback on those who've been in the field a while, and am very grateful for your responses, to get me thinking.
Angela

I just dont know what to say to you it sounds very horrific and I am just apauled

[VickyRN]

Originally Posted by discobunni

An RT telling a family to "just sue me", b/c you ain't gonna get anything. A CNA literally scrubbing an excoriated elderly patient between her legs while she cried out in pain. A nurse giving an injection w/an 18 gauge needle b/c there weren't any smaller ones in the server next to the room. UGH, I could go on.