What a nightmare. Bullying. (long)

[Thedreamer]

Today was the first day of clinical for Med/surg 2. My group is on the ICU step down. Needless to say the day was going to be interesting. My instructor gave me a patient, told me I would be giving meds and that was that. No problem for me, I love doing hands on with patients. Im quite quick at doing what needs to be done, doing it write, and charting it. This means I usually have time to brighten up my classmates days by helping them. Today I had finished my total patient care, and was walking around the floor to see if anyone was stressing out and needed another hand to help them out. I have experience as an EMT so things like showing the girls how to do acu-checks and the like are really helpful to move them along.

I found this one girl in my class, I wont say her name but I will call her Student 1. She appeared to be having a horrible day so I asked her what they problem was. She told me she had a pocket of meds from this morning she still hasnt given, hadnt started her charting, and still needed to find our Instructor, who I will call Instructor 1. I consoled her, told her that If she needed help, I dont mind doing anything she needed. She seemed happy about that. Then I told her, she might want to learn to be more assertive with her time management so this doesnt happen again. She snapped at me, which I can understand, she was so stressed. I just smiled and backed off a bit. I went to find Instructor 1 because I needed her to view my days work via report. I found her in one of the patients rooms on the floor. She seemed kinda stressed, which made sense since she had 8 of us running around the floor on her license ( not everyone has prior trainning like I do)

Instructor one told me to go please find Student 1 so she could do a straight cath. "NEAT!" I thought. I went around the floor, found her, and told her what she was going to get to do. She wanted nothing to do with it. I accompanied her back to the room to see her patient and the Instructor. Once again she denied wanting to do the straight cath, so the teacher asked me too. "Wow!" I thought. What a neat thing to get to do my first day this floor. I did it quite well with help from the instructor. It was a great learning opportunity. Student 1 and Instructor one then went about taking care of this patients meds since he hadnt gotten a single one all day. It was 10 past one so i was late for lunch.

I get down to the cafeteria, eat my lunch and notice that I dont know where post conference is. Here is where things got way out of control. The instructors sit across the large cafeteria together. I approached them to ask the question and Instructor 1 asks me if I can find student 1 because she forgot to give her the MAR to sign off on the medication they gave. I said, no problem. Searched for a while and finally found her. She was just sitting down to eat. I told her that the instructor wanted to see her, it was important and she needed to go. Student 1 told me flatly that she just sat down and was going to eat and be there soon. I said, no problem, after all, I understood. So I went to let the instructor know that Student 1 would only be a few minutes but that she was heading over. Instructor 1 then started YELLING at me! "YOU TELL HER TO GET OVER HERE NOW!!!!" The other three instructors immediatly reminded her that I wasnt the one she was mad at and understanding she was very stressed I told her it was OK and went to get the girl. I get back to Student 1 and tell her that it was urgent. She told me she didnt care. Kick her outta the program for all she cared, shes finishing her sandwhich and shed get over there when she was ready. I tried to stress the instructor was angry but she didnt care.

Well two minutes later I am going across the hospital to find an vending machine so I could finish my quest to obtain the fabled peanut M&M bag when I pass by a hall and see the instructor reaming the girl out. I felt bad but we all know an unsigned med is an ungiven med, and as it turned out, if the med was given twice to this patient it would have killed them. No wonder she was so angry.

Well about 10 minutes later we all go to get on the elevators to go to post conference. I go in to an elevator with the girl and her 3 gang group. I distinctly heard, "Oh hell no hes not comming on here!" So I just turned right back around, and that being the final straw of degration I could handle today went around the corner and tried not to cry. Everyone was yelling at me, and all I was doing was trying to help! So my previous instructor from last term came to find out why I looked so upset. I told her what I thought I heard, but didnt tell her who it was because even I didnt know. That set her off. The instructors are kinda defensive about me. She grabbed me, took me up on the elevator with the other three instructors to go talk to the girls. I of course just kept thinking, "This cant be happening, this cant be happening." The instructors kept saying things like, "We wont allow this kinda bullying to go on!" ect ect. I felt nauseas.

We got to the floor, and they round the girls up into a corner and start talking to them to find out what happened. I was waiting down the hall because I was so embarassed. I hate conflict. And these girls didnt like me before from a similar situation I posted on about in the bullying thread. Well know it was 4 against one. They told the instructors that I was lying, and an amazing actor and blah blah. The instructors believed me over these four. And that made the girls even MORE angrier. Finally the issue was left at "respect each other" and to go to post conference. I was so upset I just stayed behind and cried for 10 minutes. This was so unfair, I had had such a good day and now this? I had HELPED this person not even an hour prior cause she looked upset, and now her and her gang of girls were making me out to be a liar who was out to get them.

Finally I went into post conference and when i sat down one of the girls was giving me the "I better not see you in the parking lot after school" look. So childish, so high school. The other girls were completely pretending I didnt exist. I waited after conference till everyone had left because I was physically scared that they might do something once they were out of sight of anyone official. I just cant tell you how upsetting today was. It seems that I need to care less about others and just do my own thing. I try so hard to keep myself up, and keep all my classmates above water too. But now I feel like I am done being the nice guy that always goes out of his way to help everyone. Look what that got me today.

I know that was a long read. Im sorry I just had to get this all off my chest.

[tootsie29]

These girls are psychotic...

If they do make it through school, they will be lucky to last through 6 months of employment before they end up as cashiers at Kmart!

You were just trying to help. If they can't empathize with the situation you were put in, how are they going to empathize with patients or other coworkers?!:monkeydance:

[firstyearstudent]

Dear theDreamer:

I am very suspicious that you are a troll, despite your numerous posts. On the off chance that you aren't, I feel a responsibilty to tell you, judging from the tone of your post, your classmates most likely find you smug and obnoxious. If are really bullied and somehow victimized, my guess is that you are bringing this on yourself.

[kukukajoo, LPN]

almost any person on this earth is going to react defensively to things put a certain way. it is a nutural human reaction, one that i am certain with all your experience that you have encountered.

i keep reading your posts and the term passive agressive comes to mind. you even state that you knew this student was stressed before you open your mouth, then you leave her there and go find the instructor for your own issue, instead of for the student who desperately needed to give meds, which is a priority over report.

you are a smart person, you know that you are twisting them up and from your posts i rather think maybe you are enjoying it. why else would you put yourself in that position and not be more assertive? you seem to have placed yourself right in the middle of things and antagonize a person you say has hated you from day one, adding more fuel to the fire. why would you do that if not to get some sort of satisfaction out of it? why would you tell the instructors, then sit there and say, "i hate conflict" knowing that you just created a huge one.

i have to say, this will come back and bite you in the butt in the end. part of nursing is being able to form professional relationships and interpersonal relationships and this applies to you just as well as it applies to the girls you are talking about. i believe this is also in the nurses code of conduct or code of ethics.

also you say you previously "helped" the girl earlier- how the heck is upsetting her helping her??? you are old enough and experienced enough to know that your comment about time management was inappropriate and badly timed, yet you chose to say it anyhow, most likely knowing the effect it would have. from your post you seem to thrive on this. seems from your other posts and the history you describe you may have went in there just to antagonize her.

here is an interesting read for you: http://www.icn.ch/icncode.pdf

oh, and your previous emt work will only help you so much in nursing school so pretty soon these girls skills will be up to par with yours and may even surpass your skills.

i encourage you to buy the books sooner rather than later.

[jonb1213]

Ive had alot of time to think about how I react to these people. Why I may be at fault by saying some possibly accusatory things, that does not give them an excuse to act the way they do. They suck thier teeth when I am asked to do something in class for the prof, they talk about me constantly to other students, they say I say things to them that I dont in attempts to get me in trouble.. its so sick. No matter HOW I reacted to them they would still treat me badly. One of the girls since the first day of class has hated me and "told me off" every chance shes gotten. Very childish. I never even talked to her so theres no reason in the world she could hate me so much from the moment she met me =/

Those girls sound like straight trash... I don't think I have ever met any girl that is like that. This probably shows that I must be pretty young. Man, I feel where you are coming from, I would be so pissed.(but do yourself a favor and take these ppls advice, btw I am also going to buy the books they suggest)

Mean people suck. They will get what is coming to them.

:deadhorse

[Thedreamer]

Woah waoh waoh hold on there. The girl I was asking if she needed help isnt the same girl i am talking about not liking me. That other girl didnt even get INVOLVED till the very end of this, on the elevator. She is responsible for her own actions. I hadnt even seen her the entire day. Secondly her meds are NOTHING I am allowed to help with. Meds = Her and the instructor. Even she told me she knew I couldnt help with that. And it was perfectly logical after offering help and her telling me why she was so behind to suggest she might learn how to manage her time more wisely. That is a skill we have to attain while in this term and our instructors made that clear. She obviously wasnt. Nothing I said was said in a mean way or to antagonize her, it was a perfectly LOGICAL thing to tell her and it was said in a nice manner. No I didnt seek this crap out. My instructor put me in the middle of the situation. I would have rather avoided it all to begin with. Thats very harsh of you to say I enjoyed all this. I went to help her with good intentions. How the hell could I have predicted that same girl was going to tell the instructor NO when asked to do the straight cath, or that that student would forget to sign the MAR on the drugs shed JUST given many hours late with the instructor (med errors anyone?), or that the student would tell me to tell the teacher "I dont give a **** if they kick me out or get upset im finishing my lunch" before she would go talk to the teacher and sign those meds she gave. Which I of course DIDNT relay and instead told the teacher that she had just sat down to eat and would be right over. If I wanted to be an ass and get this girl in trouble I could have well told her what she REALLY said. And how the HELL would I have been able to predict someone I hadnt even SEEN that day being in an elevator before I got in and then HER saying a rude remark to me in front of all those people, OR that my instructors being right behind me to HEAR it. Think whatever you want. Passive aggressive my tush. This girl caused her own issues, not me.

[kukukajoo, LPN]

See- it's human nature to get defensive and try to protect oneself isn't it? You don't like being told what you should have done any more than the next person......

About the comment- I still say you had no place to say it. You are not an instructor and not there to tell her what is expected of her. She was probably painfully aware of her own faults and already nervous about it being the first day on the floor. You also puprposefully sought out a stressed student.

You were asked to relay a message, which you did. But then you carried it further by running back to the instructor to "tell" on her then again back to her. In doing so, you helped create the situation do you understand that? You should have walked over to her, given the message and be done with it and gone and ate your lunch. Whatever happened after would have been none of your business and you would not have been involved. YOU PUT YOURSELF IN THE MIDDLE, NOT the instructor. Do you understand that?

I understand that you could not help with meds. I also understand that you could have TOLD the instructor that your classmate was looking for her to give late meds and is in room so and so. That would have been very helpful to her.

Couple of tips- read the books. Begin to think of what YOU could do differently that would get a better result, don't worry about others. Read some books on communication and body language- maybe you are potraying yourself in a negative light and not even aware. Begin to concentrate on your own work and your own butt, there is ALWYAS something that can be learned or studied. If your classmates want help, they will find you. If you keep this up, as I said before you will be the one who is failing clinical for the very same reasons I stated before. Please read the above international nurses code of conduct. Professional relationships are paramount to nursing so get your butt out there and begin to learn why this is happening!

[Thedreamer]

A better approach may have been to say something like, "I see you are having a hard time today getting your assigned tasks completed, can I help you with anything?"

p.s. That IS how I opened up talking to her. Didnt you read what I wrote? Its when she responded to me that she hadnt been with her patient all day, nor given him his PAIN meds since 9am when they were due and it was already 12:30 and that she hadnt bathed the patient or done any of her charting that it became clear to me this patient had been neglected all day. Thats not being the patients advocate, its being cruel. At that point I wasnt intending to be rude by telling her that she needed to learn how to manage her time better, but thats how it came out. All I could think of at that point was how her patient had most likely been miserable without thier meds ALL morning, was probably sitting in thier own filth and what was this student doing all day? This is why the instructor was so upset when she found out what this student had been doing all day. Thats what caused the teacher to yell at her. And her friends actions in the elevator were thier own choice not influenced by me in any way since I hadnt seen them all day. People govern thier own actions and reactions. Each time I was yelled at that day I just backed off and let it pass, I didnt yell back or get mad at them because that would just make them more upset. And yet the prof and the student still kept putting me back into the middle. And finally with the elevator scene, my teachers WITNESSED the event. Unprovoked. They are the ones that went for blood on these girls. Not me. I just went around the corner to collect myself. Its easy to examine my actions after the fact and call me names like passive agressive or say that I got off to those girls being so mean, but that wasnt the case, and that was very rude to say. You are entitled to your opinion of course. I just think its one thing to actively seek out that kinda nonsense and another beast to be placed into it. And yes I am human, I make mistakes and I learn lessons. I defintely see where I messed up here, and that was being the original "go for," for the instructor who was already upset with this student to begin with. I however wont regret telling that student that they needed to manage thier time better. Id rather her be upset and realize what she needs to work on, and next time the patient she gets MIGHT not be neglected all day.

P.s. We are on the ICU step down. Ventilators, most patients incontinent, and most patients being totally dependant on US. Preach all you want about my actions being rude or such, but when its the patient or the student, I will always side with the patient. This is the same patient BTW that the student refused to do a straight cath on, that when I went in to talk to the instructor had a distended bladder and we drainned an easy 250ml from. And his sheets were covered in drainage.

p.p.s. Sorry for the rant. Im usually lax about alot of things. Defamating me isnt one of them.

[Thedreamer]

Illm ake one thing clear. I know Im not perfect. :) And yes I will be getting that book you suggested. I know that I can sometimes say stupid things, i admit that. However I didnt purposefully seek out the stressed student to upset her. I did what I always do. Seek out someone and try to help them. That way her bad day can be a good day. It just happened with this student not only could I not help her, but she had neglected her patient horribly all day. And I did help her find the instructor.

Also with the lunch thing, yes, ideally i would have just relayed the message. However when I got back to notify my instructor that the message was given she actually screamed at me in front of the other teachers to go back and get this student. To the point the instructors actually got up and told her she needed to calm down and how dare she yell at me when she was upset with the other student. I understood she was mad and i felt that had I said no to her I would have gotten her even more riled up. Hence my only option was to go find the student again. It was a rock and a hard place. Damned either way. I chose the safer route. Id rather the student be angry with me than the instructor. =/

You have valid points. I will not discredit those in any way. And yes I am going to take your advice. Theres ALWAYS room for self improvement. :balloons:

[linzz]

I think the best thing to do now is ignore these girls at all times. We had tons of bullying in my class. You may be able to request that you not be placed with them next term. I found during my clinicals the way to get through was to 1. Never offer to help a classmate unless they ask. 2. Fly low under the instructors radar, just yes sir, no sir type of thing. Believe me some teachers are great and others can destroy you if they don't like you. 3. Never complain about anything ever, the instructor just doesn't want to hear it no matter how bad it is for you. 4. Offer to help the other nurses on the floor if they seem receptive, some will love to have you with them and others will not want anything to do with you. You will know which ones are which quickly.

Here's another thing about helping, when I was in one of my clinicals, one of the RN's took it upon himself to change the soiled linen bag. Well, one of the LPN's saw him do this and promptly told him that he was taking work away from her and that he had no business doing this. Is this logical, no, but it is the way it is. The other posters are right, it is about playing politics. By the way, I would be honored to have you as my nurse as you are about the patient and that is what counts.

[kukukajoo, LPN]

Wow!! I defamed you? Next thing you know I will be accused of bullying you too. Do you see the pattern here?

Also first you say you had to tell the instructor when she saw you just after the incident, now you are saying she witnessed the event. Which one is it?

I don't think you have understood what I have been trying to say to you and I think that may be where your problem lies. I offered many suggestions and tried to explain some things to you and now it is defaming you????

I am done with issue before I get accused of bullying you.

[kukukajoo, LPN]

here is something on passive aggressive behavior i thought you might find interesting:

a person who shows a lot of passive-aggressive behavior can have a passive-aggressive personality disorder. a person with this disorder:

is irritable, defensive, and resentfullacks self-confidencehas a hard time getting pleasure from relationships with othersfeels others are making unreasonable demands on him or her, but thinks he or she is doing a better job than what they are given credit forblames others for his or her problemsis not aware that his or her self-defeating behaviors are part of their personality

[NurseShelly]

It's unfortunate, but they're people like the immature four everywhere. Dreamer, you sound like a really nice person, I wish we were in class together when I was in school. My classmates and I would've really appreciated your help. I'm sorry you even had to experience this situation. Students need to behave as actual professionals in clinical. If this is any indication of how the Immature Four would behave in the workplace, geesh! I'd be sure to sign myself out of the hospital AMA. But you on the other hand will be a credit to the nursing profession, a nurse's nurse you know, probably even a good manager someday. Like someone on here already said, you're in nursing school for you. If you find yourself with free time during clinicals and if your instructor is fine with it, read some protocols, check and recheck your pt's hx and lab values, go over your charting again, or anything that's going to help you. Good luck to you, and feel better.

p.s.