Nurse Bully, please protect your young: "Don't eat them"

Nurses are divided in two groups. The first is tough skin, and strong willed. The second is sweet, angelical, compassionate and don’t have a mean bone in their body. When group number one gets frustrated they take their grievances to the young and docile. Please don’t do it Mr. bully. Have some guts and face your boss and his rules, the ones you really have a problem with. Nurses Announcements Archive Article

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Nurse Bully, please protect your young: "Don't eat them"

I believe nurses are very special individuals. Think about it. They are professionals who take care of others in their dire moments. They patiently heal the putrid wounds of some; calm the fear and hopelessness of others; tolerate ingratitude and hostility daily; endure day after day of toiling around the sick and dying. Is only natural you'll find compassionate and warm hearted beings among nurses. I have been in other professions and the contrast is clear to me.

But because nursing is a tough job; some of us develop a thick skin. In a way, is a protection mechanism some develop to survive - you either get tough or you die. Although there is nothing wrong with being tough, some nurses can become quite aggressive and hostile to other nurses. We all have met them at some point, I surely did. But even being aggressive and assertive, nurses cannot match the aggressiveness of some bosses. Oh yes, let's talk about them bosses.

But bosses are people too. Yes, there are reasons why nurse bosses are sometimes so bossy. But bosses also have their though fights to fight. They too must develop an even tougher skin to survive the trials and tribulations of health care. Sometimes bosses are just nurses who left the floor because they simply couldn't take it anymore. Then to find even more stress in management.

Nurses are usually between a rock and a hard place. They have lots of responsibility, but lack the power to make decisions on their own. Doctors have much more say so in regards to their professional lay out. They call the shots, they can fire patients and are respected by most. Nurses on the other hand need to make decisions but always filtered by a set of rules created by others. Nurses must endure whatever BS is thrown at them. If you have an abusive patient, all you can do is to write a note and hope for the best. Most nurses can't simply fire a patient or they'll get fired.

Nurses run the show but are told how things should run. Often by someone who is deciding for them from an office chair; people who never worked on a floor or have not worked in years and can't remember anything. So, nurses are in a pressure cooker situation. Pressure from all sides and not an outlet in sight.

Well actually there is: and that is to relief the pressure on the least dangerous and inconsequential outlet - the young and vulnerable ones. The perplexed and scared nurslings are the recipient of a lot of pent-up anger. But why older nurses engage in this predatory and coward behavior?

It must be their inability to change the system and claim their power. Their extreme frustration lead them to eat their young. The ones they should be nourishing, protecting and grooming to take nursing to the next level just got eaten for lunch. Just like scared animals - they step on their own eggs. This is unfortunate.

If young nurses were well groomed and nurtured they would be the ones able to take nursing to the next level. Instead nurses create a culture of perpetuating the errors inflicted in them by transferring it to the young.

Protecting the young

Again, if you want to bully someone bully the oppressor and not the oppressed. Bully your problems and not the people who are here to learn. The bully energy is good energy but wasted and pointed in the wrong direction.

The alternative to bullying is to preserve and protect the young: because teaching the young the right ways is the only viable way to change nursing culture. It changes things because the young always will change the world. But instead we teach them the culture of bullying. We create perfect students in the art of bullying others. Nothing changes.

So, Mr. Bully next time you decide to torture the young, think of why you went into nursing back in the day. Bullying the young will only perpetuate the culture of abusiveness you were ounce, and continues to be a victim of.

MSN, RN

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Daisy4RN

2,221 Posts

Specializes in Travel, Home Health, Med-Surg.

We can argue till the cows come home on the definition of bullying but I think the OP is just saying that it is in everyone's best interest to try to be civil to each other. I for one agree!

roser13, ASN, RN

6,504 Posts

Specializes in Med/Surg, Ortho, ASC.
Daisy4RN said:
We can argue till the cows come home on the definition of bullying but I think the OP is just saying that it is in everyone's best interest to try to be civil to each other. I for one agree!

You are late to the discussion. Others before you (in the hundreds) are, simply put, quite "over" it.

Read this quickly, before it disappears

JadedCPN, BSN, RN

1,476 Posts

Specializes in Pediatrics, Pediatric Float, PICU, NICU.

You want to know what I really think is non-contributory? All of these so-called NETY articles and threads that show no real bullying scenarios (and believe me, I know it is out there) but instead act as a scare factor by using the infamous buzz word.

To contribute to this post so that another comment of mine won't be deleted if I just disagree, I will say that I respectfully disagree for the most part but do agree that nurse managers can have a major influence and impact on making certain cultural changes within the work environment.

SmilingBluEyes

20,964 Posts

Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.

I would add: there is a lot of "old eating" that goes on too. The young eat the old too. Do a search; you will see what I mean. And nurses are not black and white. There are shades of gray. We are not angels and saints or evil. We are HUMAN.

cleback

1,381 Posts

This article paints the nursing profession in a horrible light. Either we're bullies or spineless angels.... Hmmm... and I have never heard of a doctor "firing" a patient. They are under pressure from admins, too, to provide customer service.

If the profession is such, maybe the nurse cannibals are doing the youngins a favor by scaring them away.

Post like this will hopefully make a difference because bullying does happen and many people suffer in silence from it. I think the stress of the job and the inability to cope at the job brings the bullying behavior out of people.

OrganizedChaos, LVN

1 Article; 6,883 Posts

Specializes in M/S, LTC, Corrections, PDN & drug rehab.
Workitinurfava said:
Post like this will hopefully make a difference because bullying does happen and many people suffer in silence from it. I think the stress of the job and the inability to cope at the job brings the bullying behavior out of people.

Does bullying happen? Yes. But this thread does not help the situation. The OP only discusses the old eating the young which perpetuates the NETY nonsense & is just not true. Anyone bullies anyone regardless of age, gender, race or time in a profession.

If the OP wanted to be taken seriously he would've done a better job discussing bullying at work & talked about all the facets of bullying, not just NETY.

Leonardo Del Toro, RN

1 Article; 730 Posts

Specializes in "Wound care - geriatric care.
OrganizedChaos said:
Does bullying happen? Yes. But this thread does not help the situation. The OP only discusses the old eating the young which perpetuates the NETY nonsense & is just not true. Anyone bullies anyone regardless of age, gender, race or time in a profession.

If the OP wanted to be taken seriously he would've done a better job discussing bullying at work & talked about all the facets of bullying, not just NETY. That & he should've provided examples & proof read his post at least once.

Thanks for your comment. The idea of the article was not to point out the "bullying phenomenon" per se. But to show that bullying is ultimately the product of problems originating in the struggles nurses encounter. Lack of authority, unjust working environments, to name a few. At the end pointing to a solution in grooming the young with the idea of changing the culture.

Ruby Vee, BSN

17 Articles; 14,030 Posts

Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
OrganizedChaos said:
Does bullying happen? Yes. But this thread does not help the situation. The OP only discusses the old eating the young which perpetuates the NETY nonsense & is just not true. Anyone bullies anyone regardless of age, gender, race or time in a profession.

If the OP wanted to be taken seriously he would've done a better job discussing bullying at work & talked about all the facets of bullying, not just NETY. That & he should've provided examples & proof read his post at least once.

We're all getting tired of endless "articles" about NETY, and one more "article" about poor, angelic (spineless) nurslings being bullied and "eaten" by thick-skinned older nurses just adds to the fear that some newbies have about being out on their own. Perhaps we should instead focus on work place relationships and how to foster good ones.

OrganizedChaos, LVN

1 Article; 6,883 Posts

Specializes in M/S, LTC, Corrections, PDN & drug rehab.
marcos9999 said:
Thanks for your comment. The idea of the article was not to point out the "bullying phenomenon" per se. But to show that bullying is ultimately the product of problems originating in the struggles nurses encounter. Lack of authority, unjust working environments, to name a few. At the end pointing to a solution in grooming the young with the idea of changing the culture.

But you only discuss "protecting the young" when lateral violence is a real issue regardless of anything. It doesn't just happen to young, new nurses.

OrganizedChaos, LVN

1 Article; 6,883 Posts

Specializes in M/S, LTC, Corrections, PDN & drug rehab.
Ruby Vee said:
We're all getting tired of endless "articles" about NETY, and one more "article" about poor, angelic (spineless) nurslings being bullied and "eaten" by thick-skinned older nurses just adds to the fear that some newbies have about being out on their own. Perhaps we should instead focus on work place relationships and how to foster good ones.

I feel like if I read one more thread or "article" about NETY I'm going to rip my hair out. If it is so bad why do people focus on all the negative & not try to change anything? Isn't that contributing to the problem?