ICU nurses attitude toward med-surg nurses - Page 4

I disagree with meandragonbrett, one of the reasons for the shortage is Nurses are treating each other disrespectfully on a regular basis so 'just letting it roll off your shoulder' technique is never going to improve the current work environment. Nurses tolerate behaviors that go against basic polite rules of engagment. There is a underlying bigger problem but that is for another blog.

I am a new grad who got hired for the ICU. I am currently in a new grad residency program and I am finishing up my Med-Surg rotation. While I was at work the other night, someone asked me what department did I get hired for. When I said MICU, I got the teeth sucking sound and the person looked at me crazy. When I asked what's that all about, she told me that the ICU nurses in the hospital got a horrible rep of being "stuck up and snotty" and they always transfer patients to the med-surg floor in a "mess", with blown IV's, dirty gowns, etc.

I just smiled and said "well I'm glad I had this experience in Med-Surg to understand what's it like when I do get to the MICU". I've also heard this "ICU nurse generalization" at other hospitals.

I also hear bad things about ER nurses, which is my next rotation. And that night we also got a new admit from the ER and the patient didnt have any IV access and the Med-Surg nurses spent atleast 10 minutes complaining about the ER nurses and how they always "dump" patients on them and they know good and well they should have started an IV on the patient, etc.

All I will say is that I'm glad for this experience in my new grad residency program so I can see the entire picture. I don't think one department is better than the other, and after handling 4 patients on my own who all have meds due at the same time and who are all on their call lights at the same time, I will say I have a great respect for Med-Surg nurses. I think respect need to be given both ways, and if you have never walked in another shoes, you have no idea.

I'm in Med-Surg and haven't seen any of this "ego stuff" amongst departments. Actually, of all the reports I've given/have gotten, the other nurse has been nice and not condescending at all! Maybe I'm just lucky??

I dislike this thread, but I have an idea. Let's all just get along. We all have difficult jobs, for various reasons. We all have strengths and weaknesses. We are all nurses and the most important thing is patient care. Assume positive intent. The end.

You are lucky.

After 19 years of doing this, I have learned that every job in the hospital has its place and every job is difficult. I work in PACU. I get a lot of eye-rolling when I bring my patients upstairs, but I just smile. I explain everything I could've possibly done for the patient and speak with the nurse in a collegiate, respectful, and mostly humorous way. We connect as nurses, we connect as people. I do not feel I need to make another person feel bad to make myself feel good--and if they don't like what I've done, I just tell them the truth--and that is I've done all of I can and "thank you for the care you will be giving this patient."

Know what? It works. I know a lot of nurses on MedSurg, Pedi, ICU, and they are always nice to me. Maybe it is because I have great respect for them and what they do, and I let them know it.

How about ALL of us do that for each other????????

That's exactly it. As a telemetry floor nurse, I used to wonder why I got such cruddy reports from the ED, or why they couldn't seem to place an IV anywhere other than the AC, or why my patients got sent up with wet undergarments or clothes still on. Now that I'm in the ED, I totally get it. Of course, knowing the kind of report the floor nurse wants will make me better at giving report, but I still cannot go into the depth that would normally happen during shift change report on the floor. If the patient has a nice vein somewhere other than the AC, I'll go for it. But if I don't have time to dink around, the AC it is. In fact, I started my first AC IV for the first time ever just the other night. I usually go for the cephalic in the forearm, but most of the time I need to get those labs drawn yesterday, and the AC is going to be the quickest and easiest. If they came in saturated with urine, I've changed them, but in the meantime, they may have wet again and I won't have necessarily had time to address it. It's not that I don't care or that I'm sloppy, it's just that my priorities are really the ABCs, and most everything else can wait.

Having never worked in ICU nor Med/Surg, I can only say it must be a similar kind of dynamic. I remember getting report from ICU nurses, and getting the patient's entire life story, from whether they were breast or bottle fed and at what age they first ate solid food, to what kind of toilet paper they use...yes, I am exaggerating, but that is often how I felt. All I really needed to know, as a floor nurse, was much less detailed.