This is about Nurses who take the time to mentor Students and share their experience with Nurses learning new skills and Nurses who are forced to work with one arm tied behind their back due to short staff or poor management
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So much has been written in this Forum regarding the behavior of Nurses toward their co-workers and Patients and the impressions of the General Public toward the Nursing Profession; its time to take a fair and balanced view of what is actually happening in hospitals and medical facilities in today's society.
Let me say, at the outset, I am not an expert in the field of examining and/or evaluating personal behavior and all its ramifications in the medical professions. I can only draw on my own personal experiences and in this case the hundreds of responses to an Article I wrote on "Allnurses" Web Site" called "Why Nurses Eat Their Young" along with similar Articles written by other Nurses addressing the same phenomenon in a variety of nurse related disciplines along the same lines. All addressing some type of hostility in the workplace.
" Nurses Eat Their Young" is an analogy used in the Nursing Profession to describe how some Nurses cull the weak from the strong just as a Mother Cat will push a Runt or weak kitten aside and focus all her attention on the health and survival of the rest of the litter. Some feel the phrase is overused and portrays Nurses and the Nursing Profession in a negative light and call for its abolition. Some scoff at the idea and respond with sarcasm ridicule Some prefer to keep the spotlight on the complainer, suggesting they should look more to themselves for answers, rather than point a finger at any person or situation .
Last but not least there are those who fight the good fight and do their best to share their skills , education and experience with the eager, young people, the older, experienced people, learning new skills, the young students, full of potential but insecure and need a strong mentor with the patience and understanding to help them fulfill the promise they made to themselves "to do no harm" and "to make a difference" and chose Nursing as their lifetime Career.
The number of posts detailing how Nurses cull the litter is in the thousands. Everything from just plain old rudness to out and out hostility. One only has to read about 50 posts to catch the drift of what some Nurses endure just to get through their Nursing Program or to do their job. One can continue reading and discover how little is being done by Management, on every level, to address the problem. It doesn't take a Phd. to figure out the magnitude of the problem or the effect it has on Patient Outcomes. It is time to take an in depth look at the state of Nursing today. It is time to put the "Caring" back into the Nursing Profession.
There was a time when Patients called us "Angels of Mercy . That time seems to have gone by. I contend there are still plenty of Angels still out there. They do the best they can every day with whatever comes their way and give a helping hand to whoever comes their way. If you just look around you will find one. When you find one, give him/her a hug but be careful of the broken wing.
