Have you ever been made to feel useless and incompetent?

Nurses General Nursing

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I do home health and some snotty back stabbing PDN called and informed me the doctor didn't want me back in the house doing blood draws. Apparently, the patient doesn't like the way I do them, or whatever. I doubt the doctor actually said this, but we wrote a verbal order for the HH nurse to discontinue blood draws and it was signed.

As far as the workplace goes, everytime something is messed up or wrong everyone assumes it is my fault. I get corrections in my mailbox that don't even belong to me. No one else has this problem.

I hate nursing and am trying to find a way to get out of it. I hate the thought of even going back to work.

Have you ever been refused/complained about as a nurse? Have you ever been made to feel useless and incompetent?

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Specializes in Utilization Management.
Have you ever been refused/complained about as a nurse? Have you ever been made to feel useless and incompetent?

No and yes.

I left and found someplace I'm appreciated and valued. Their loss.

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I can do nothing right with our current charge nurse. I worked with her when she still worked the floor and we got along fine. Now it's, Elizabeth come here, Elizabeth, I'm going to fire you if you do that again - that was after I left a food tray in a room where the pt needed fed. The tray was not within her reach. We pass the rest of the trays and then go back and feed those that need it. I thought I was the only one who thought she was on a power trip, but everyone thinks she's on one. But I'm the only one she threatens to fire. And she can't fire me, she's a fill in, weekends only.

I walked in at 0630 one morning and she came right up to me and said "EVERYONE better be ready for breakfast on time or someone is going to get written up." Thing is, nurses don't report to work until 0700.

Maybe she's bipolar because one minute she's threatening to fire me and the next she's saying she couldn't work without me. She better pick one before I explode.

I know that every workplace has people like this, but this place has more than it's share, mainly because management doesn't have any cajones.

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Angie, how is your new job going?

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Yes. You will always meet people that try to make you feel about 2 inches high. It took me years to figure out that the trick was to make me feel 2 inches tall to make themselves feel like they were on a pedestal. Then there are those who can't just shrug and say "Oh well, I'm sorry it happened, hopefully it won't happen it again." They have to blame someone.

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No, absolutely not ;). My entire nursing career has been filled with loving people who guarded my sensitive nature vigilantly, and only uttered uplifting words of encouragement.:blushkiss I have never felt useless or incompetent whatsoever.:wink2:

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Specializes in Utilization Management.
No, absolutely not ;). My entire nursing career has been filled with loving people who guarded my sensitive nature vigilantly, and only uttered uplifting words of encouragement.:blushkiss I have never felt useless or incompetent whatsoever.:wink2:

:rotfl: Thanks, I needed that.

And Beth, much better now, thanks!

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I had to leave the midwest state I was living in and went to the west coast where I discovered there are actually nice, intelligent, educated nurses who did not treat people like that, who would not talk about everybody else at the nurses's station, who had high levels of professionalism and patient service, who actually cared about their coworkers and supported each other. (Did not find this on the east coast, either, it's not just the midwest.)

For years in the midwest I went home and cried. I experienced every nasty nurse trick, every bullying tactic, in the book for years. My self confidence still plummets when I am around a nasty person; I can't control it. I can't wait to leave nursing myself. This started in nursing school but by the time I experienced it I had too many loans to pay back and 2 little girls to support (single mother on AFDC). Hated nursing school so much for the lack of positive support it kept me away from graduate nursing school for years -- that and the OB instructor who was a homebirth midwife who wanted to kick me out of school and who said bad things about me to a prospective employer right out of school so I didn't get the job -- I naively thought she'd become a supportive mentor.

Although now I finally realize that in graduate school, the faculty actually aren't out to flunk you and they are actually supportive, & treat students as future members of the sisterhood, as it were. So many nurse managers play that "big momma, little nurse" game in which they continually hold the threat of firing you over your head, but never have anything specific to say you're doing wrong, never offer clinical support or mentoring for whatever defects they think you have, or anything constructive -- firing you is the answer because you are expendable. This game induces great fear in you when you are a single parent with lots of bills to pay. I had fantasies about being able to go to medical school so I could go completely over the heads of these nasty women and give them orders.

I think so much of the quality of work experience and professionalism of management and one's coworkers depends on the culture of the unit, the hospital, and it's luck when you find a good place. I also don't think there are very many out there.

This subject is still a wide open wound with me.

Sending you lots of hugs, girl. We all need them!

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Specializes in Med/Surge, Psych, LTC, Home Health.

Oh yes, every night, with my new shift supervisor. =( In her eyes it seems like I can't do anything right, and she always seems to find something to pick at me about or say that I've done wrong.

And sometimes it seems like people that *I* don't get along with, everyone else gets along with... and people that everyone else complains about, I get along with. That's the case with our shift supers. The one that works during the week, I can't stand, but most everyone else seems to just love. The one that works weekends, I like a lot, but others complain about a lot. Weird.

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No, absolutely not ;). My entire nursing career has been filled with loving people who guarded my sensitive nature vigilantly, and only uttered uplifting words of encouragement.:blushkiss I have never felt useless or incompetent whatsoever.:wink2:

:monkeydance: :lol2: :lol2:

mama, hang in there. Do you hate nursing or this place? Big difference.

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