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I swear sometimes i don't know WHY i'm in this profession. My mom works at a job as a RN and was limping one day. Her knee bothers her from time to time, etc...she's overweight (and working on it) but it gives her trouble at times. Instead of someone ASKING her what was wrong, one of the nurses ran to the manager and told her that my mom couldn't "keep up" and didn't seem to be quick enough for the job cuz she seemed disabled. This is a NEW job for my mom, so she's still on orientation technically. The manager called her in and made her take off today to go to Occ health and have it tested so she could be cleared to work. ***?? She told her "we'll figure out what to do pending what the doc says." so she didn't work today and lost that time worked. Of course she went to occ health, the Doc tested her etc...and cleared her no problem. She told him she was excercising, walking and taking meds for it. Forgot to wrap it that day, but was not having any trouble SINCE that day. I have 2 problems with this. 1 is that NOBODY asked her what was up with her knee that day. NOBODY. 2 is that the manager just jumped on it because of what this other nurse SAID. WHY do nurses feel like they have to police each other's performance? UGH i'm just disgusted.
I'm so sorry this happened to your mother. I'd like to think it happened because the other nurse was genuinely concerned that your mom may not be able to keep up with the strenuous pace and hurt herself further, but the other side of me thinks yes...this may have been approached differently.
I personally would have asked her first.
I too find that as nurses we're trained to "look out" for each other a little too much. There really isn't the same sense of comraderie and togetherness that say, doctors have. (in the sticking together aspect). But that's just me.
I remember being in nursing school and one of my instructor's telling the class that "nurses eat their young...or their own..." or something like that. She said that nurses were some of the most competitive people you will ever meet. I really thought she was exaggerating...until I graduated and went to work in the field....or should I say...in the trenches...YES nurses eat their young. They are some of the most cold-hearted, back-stabbingest people I have ever met...I am sorry to say. Yes, you have b*****s everywhere, but you have an EXCESS in the nursing field! They will find and pick apart some of the most petty ridiculous things imaginable. SnowymtRN...I feel for your Mom...that other nurse was not worried about her in the least, if she had been, she'd have gone to your mom FIRST...as is often the case, unfortunately, more often than not, she was trying to stir up some trouble...it's a constant fight to watch your back...and I actually work with some of the more decent of the breed!!! UGHHHHHHHH.................and they wonder why there is a nursing shortage?????!!!!!!!
I think the causes are many-fold, but three that I can think of right off the top of my head are:
1. Nursing is a very demanding, detail oriented field. You have to be on the ball every minute, all the time to do this job right. You can't be daydreaming anytime. If you aren't paying attention, someone could really get hurt, or worse. So co-workers tend to be very demanding as well.
2. Nursing instructors are intensely detail oriented, they have to be to produce great nurses. They also have a personal mission to "weed out" the less than ideal nurses, and this is after people have had to jump through flaming hoops to get *into* nursing school. Nursing instructors do not get reprimanded for being difficult to please, they are rewarded for it.
3. To get *into* nursing school, you have to be very very competitive. You don't get in, unless you are fairly driven to succeed as a nurse, this would tend to select a group that is almost tailor-made for young-eating. It kind of reminds me of chickens. If a chicken sees another chicken with a speck of blood (or something red) on it, that chicken will come and peck the red spot, and other chickens will come and peck too, until the injured chicken is killed, or nearly killed. Does this promote the survival of the fittest, or the survival of the meanest?
Not to excuse their behaviour - they sound just a wee bit insensitive on that ward...!
But it could be happening because the nurses on that unit have been "burned" by some other nurse in the past, who wasn't able to carry her fair share of the load, etc.... I know when we've had a few new hires with various problems that did not get picked up on before the end of their probationary period - big headache then, believe me, no matter what the problem is! So we try to let the manager know about any issues with new staff members, just to keep the lines of communication open.
To me, it sounds like the "catty-ness" was on the part of the manager who took the nurses complaints straight to her face! imo, it's the managers job to look at the bigger picture and not take one or two shifts as indicators of what an employee will be like forever.... it could have been handled differently by the manager. Also, if the manager didn't reward the other nurses tattle-take behaviour with results, the behavior might not be so prominent.... why isn't the MANAGER telling her nurses to give the new person half a chance, or ask questions rather than accuse...?
Please don't generalize with the statement "why are nurses so catty". It makes us all look and sound bad.
Seems like someone would have asked about her knee before running to management. It sounds like management wasn't aware of her limitations though, and it sounds like it was affecting her job, so like it or not, it is a management issue. I agree it could have been handled better.
Then again, there are people who get irritated when people ask about personal health issues and the thread might have been "why are nurses so nosy?".
Truth hurts worse than a hair ball stuck in your throat.
Female nurses are catty because they are women, and frankly, many women are catty. Male nurses expect anyone who takes a job to be physically able to perform. It's not personal. In fact, the NM is doing her job by sending the newly hired RN to get eval'd. If the new RN can't physically do the job, now is the time to find out. Again, it's not personal, it's business.
Not to get into stereotypes, but this is only an issue because most nurses are women. Women look at this problem and see an injustice to the individual. Men look at it and see an injustice to the team.
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WHY are nurses so catty??
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Nurses Eat Their Young...
