Do you tattle on your co-workers when you find something missed?

rn undisclosed name · Feb 7, 2013

I am fortunate the unit I work on is nothing like that. If I find something I tell the nurse about it. Or if it's during report I tell them. It's usually a new grad. If they're not receptive and the issue is significant enough I will talk to my manager or do an incident report. But I do attempt to talk to the person first and have it taken from there.

There used to be a nurse on my unit who would write up "everything". My manager knew that and took her write-ups with a grain of salt. I was once written up for putting restraints on a pt and neglecting to tell that nurse and there was no order. Except I didn't put restraints on the pt and it was the caregiver at the bedside who did it and it wasn't the first time on that admission. Had I known that I wouldn't have had the restraints at the bedside. I did however tell the nurse how the patient started acting beligerent near the end of my shift but was ok and didn't have to do anything further. Luckily this nurse is no longer there. Everyone hated giving report to her.

I will admit I don't do incident reports as often as I should. I'm just not going to stay any later throughout my shift to do them. I'm usually ready to go home. I do less than one incident report per month.

payitforward · Feb 7, 2013

I dont thin we're talking about patient safety- if someone is doing something wrong then yes that is an issue and should be addressed. We all can agree on that. I'm referring about what we do to each other. The backbiting, back stabbing, name calling resentments. That really doesn't need to happen. Why do we do it??? who can say?Jealousy,pride? Whatever. I try and stay away from all of that negativity. BUT when you smile in my face and call me everything BUT my name behind my back, and try and make it seem I'm not a good nurse? We have issues. Tha's why I come to work, do my job, and go home.The ONLY person I put my trust in is Jesus!

jamie876 · Feb 7, 2013

Tsk,,seems to be a serious problem... I could not also thrive in an environment like that, because aside from the stress you get from the work itself, you still have to deal with these people!

joanna73, BSN, RN · Feb 7, 2013

I'd rather talk with my coworker first and work things out. Most issues result from miscommunication and different values. There is nothing that I would say about someone behind their back that I haven't said to their face. I detest tattling just for the sake of causing trouble.

Dazglue, ADN, BSN, MSN, RN · Feb 7, 2013

Do we work on the same floor? I work with 1 nurse who tattles EVERYTHING. Example? A person refused a stool softner and I chart that the med is refused, the reason and returned it in the pyxis. She found a stool softner laying in the station and somehow I'm staying over on the clock waiting until management gets to work for a hour long meeting! When said nurse saw the pill all she had to do was ask if it was mine. I could have said no and she could have moved on...instead of having me stuck in a meeting, struggling to stay awake to drive home, just to come back to work that night! However, if it is a safety issue, such as the wrong medication is found hanging, then of course that needs to be brought up to management.

Tnyce · Feb 7, 2013

I think this is common in the nursing profesion. Could it be because this is a female dominated profession and we are known for being catty and petty. I mean you never see doctors doing to each other, half of what we do. That is why I prefer night shift. We all work together and don't have time for the nonsense. Maybe because we are too tired to be stressed. I don't see the need to try to tell on someone unless they are not doing their work and leaving things to be dumped on you.

Nurse_ · Feb 7, 2013

I learned after being in this profession for a while that it's best to keep unpleasantries to myself. If a certain opinion, stand or whatever has a potential to hunt me back and affect my job, then it's best I keep it to myself.

Nursing is like high school.

We are together with this people for 36+ hours in a week. People get bored, chatty and then... rumors start. I stay away from rumors. I joke around if it's a common topic. I discuss policies and procedures with co-workers. But as an individual, I have to draw the line on how much I want to be involved. Because chances are, someone will make a big deal out of it and it'll end up biting me in the ass.

I've seen nurses get bullied, quit because of the hostile environment and learned from that. Nurses needs to be aggressive to be an active patient advocate and sometimes that aggressiveness is turned to each other. A hostile working environment makes for a very long 12-hour shift. So if it's something really important, I try not to tell on anyone but go to the manager myself to address the issue. If it's a policy I don't quite understand, I ask the manager directly so that there's no middle man.

That Guy, BSN, RN, EMT-B · Feb 7, 2013

And we get no respect because......

Guest343211 · Feb 7, 2013

Do we work on the same floor? I work with 1 nurse who tattles EVERYTHING. Example? A person refused a stool softner and I chart that the med is refused, the reason and returned it in the pyxis. She found a stool softner laying in the station and somehow I'm staying over on the clock waiting until management gets to work for a hour long meeting! When said nurse saw the pill all she had to do was ask if it was mine. I could have said no and she could have moved on...instead of having me stuck in a meeting, struggling to stay awake to drive home, just to come back to work that night! However, if it is a safety issue, such as the wrong medication is found hanging, then of course that needs to be brought up to management.

YES! and Right! This kind of crap--and then mgt forcing you to hang around after working all night to just to deal with BS. Holy cow. Seen that. Why can't these things be handled, at least initially, through email? Or at least email to find preliminary information. Some people just look for things or twist things into something they are not, or they take an issue that was d/t what someone else did (have seen this--eg. doc did something that compromised something on a patient--ongoing issues with it d/t to that, well, they try to make it something a nurse "might have or might have not" done. I'm the game scenarios for this kind of crap are endless. A for heaven's sake, if an in-person meeting must occur, really try to get it for a time that accommodates both people. If a night shift person has worked 12+ hours already, has to commute and has to go back into work, and you are making him or her wait till you get in, then, that's unacceptable. I've seen NM and such do this all the time. God-forbid they should wake their butts up early and come in early. Add to that when there is a commute problem for them, and they are even later. It's the height of disrespect in my opinion. Of stay a bit later so you can confer with the night nurse. Most of all, get preliminary information (as across the board as possible), and then schedule a freaking meeting--schedule--meaning considering both people's situations/calendars/outside responsibilities. I really resent when people think thy OWN you, seriously, own you--like you don't have any life or serious responsibilities outside of work--or if you do, tough crap. My impromptu call of a meeting is MOST important. Sigh. Again, it all comes down to leader and a general sense of respect for people.

Guest343211 · Feb 7, 2013

I learned after being in this profession for a while that it's best to keep unpleasantries to myself. If a certain opinion, stand or whatever has a potential to hunt me back and affect my job, then it's best I keep it to myself.

Nursing is like high school.
We are together with this people for 36+ hours in a week. People get bored, chatty and then... rumors start. I stay away from rumors. I joke around if it's a common topic. I discuss policies and procedures with co-workers. But as an individual, I have to draw the line on how much I want to be involved. Because chances are, someone will make a big deal out of it and it'll end up biting me in the ass.
I've seen nurses get bullied, quit because of the hostile environment and learned from that. Nurses needs to be aggressive to be an active patient advocate and sometimes that aggressiveness is turned to each other. A hostile working environment makes for a very long 12-hour shift. So if it's something really important, I try not to tell on anyone but go to the manager myself to address the issue. If it's a policy I don't quite understand, I ask the manager directly so that there's no middle man.

IDK, sometimes you are damned not matter what you do. But it's m ore than people getting bored or chatted. It is truly this evil sort of toxicity.

I also think there is a difference between being assertive and advocating versus aggressive. Some people misinterpret these things. Like an assertive nursing advocating has wrongly been describe by other nurses within a given group as "confrontational." And that word can get a bad rap too, b/c to confront something isn't necessarily wrong; it is how you do it. But some work cultures only allow certain people to confront, and it's not truly a more democratic kind of environment, but more autocratic, where only certain folks get to be advocates--and often when these folks confront, they truly are being negatively confrontational with other nurses. So. . .

I do think it's fair and right to suck it up and go to the person with the action in question and discuss it with them. Sure they could manipulate the things and thus represent something that isn't accurate to the NM, but the nurse's goal (and sooooo many nurses don't get this) is not to play cop. It is to be ensure safety and good care within an ethical, supportive environment.

If it's a serious enough issue--like someone got the wrong blood or product, or say someone left the blood hanging too long, and the patient started to show signs of decompensation. (I have had to deal with this as a charge nurse. We ended up running our orifices off on that patient, and she became more critically ill than she already was.) Those kinds of things MUST be dealt with immediately b/c the patient must come first. And no matter what, you are going to end up staying late writing the thing up--b/c you were running you orifice off with that patient and you had three codes on that unit that night, and had to attend to all the rest of the other patients you were in charge of within the unit--and any that you had direct care over--and the census and admissions. You will have to make sure your responses were correct and that you dotted every "i" and crossed every "t". That's the way it goes.

But in general we are talking about BS stuff that IMHO requires the gonads as well as communication skills of non-threatening and genuine approach to deal with stuff uno en uno.

DeLana_RN, BSN, RN · Feb 7, 2013

Funny I should read this just as I am dealing with a ludicrous write-up by a charge nurse who wrote a rambling, incoherent complaint to the manager that I was "complaining" about my assignments the other day. No quotes, no witnesses, just her (mis)interpretation of what was said; she never had the guts to confront me with this which obviously bothered her enough to go over my head (like a first grader runs to the teacher) and try to get me in trouble with management.

You want war? Sure, you can have it. But if I made as many mistakes as this so-called charge nurse, I would probably not start this. But I guess some people just can't comprehend that

people in glass houses should not throw stones.

Even the densest among them, however, should understand that

what goes around comes around.

RNdynamic · Feb 7, 2013

I work in an environment where everyone smiles to your face while they are stabbing you in the back. With nurses who will lie and exaggerate the truth telling the NM on you in emails and phone calls, then smile and joke to your face. How can you work like this? When you're constantly looking over your shoulder worried about what mistake will go in your permanent file? If I find something wrong, something missed by the previous nurse I fix the problem and move on. (the shift is WAY too busy to stop and write emails on what the previous nurse missed by accident) But, now that writing emails and vindictiveness is what the NM wants from his staff, I guess I will give him that.
I learned something last week. Trust NO. ONE. EVER.
Please give me your thoughts! :)

Not currently, but this environment was present big time at my first hospital. Nurses tend to have low self esteem and are bent on "one-upping" each other in order to make them feel better about themselves. This is due in part to the fact that a higher than average percentage of nurses originate from low socioeconomic backgrounds, in contrast to most other professionals. Within the hospital, this behavior is characteristically nurse-like. Truth. Do you ever see pharmacists, MDs, or RTs doing "write-ups" on each other? Hardly. This behavior is endemic to nurses. Especially sad, lonely, pathetic female nurses. Male nurses almost never behave this way.