why do nurses gossip and belittle eachother?

Nurses Relations

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This happened a few times while I was in inpatient. And I was throughly disturbed and annoyed by it. Like, don't you have anything better to do? I remember once I was listening to nurse/staff person, I think her name was Margaret or something and yelled at her saying :"Shut the **** up!"

jadelpn, LPN, EMT-B

9 Articles; 4,800 Posts

Managers allow this to continue. Until patients complain about it, and it affects their bottom line. Otherwise, mangers who are not directly involved in taking notice and acting on their expectations of behavior, it sadly continues.

5 nurses can complain, show protocol that "hostile work environments will not be tolerated" and magnitudes of other pc stuff that is meant to look as if the powers that be care about unit/facility culture of respect. However, nothing is done until such time as a patient complains loudly and consistently, writes letters to the local paper, puts up a stink due to their outrage, that this could be addressed.

I am just jaded enough to believe that if managers wanted to stop inappropriate and unprofessional behavior in the people under their employ, they have the power to do so but any number do not, Instead, they focus on the whistle blower for upsetting the apple cart--even if the cart is full of rotten apples.

Head down, do not get involved in the fray, do what you need to do and go home. And thank your lucky stars you are well beyond the junior high school mentality (

It is not just in nursing, but virtually any work environment where women work together. I think it is more obvious in Nursing because the field is so competitive. Everyone is trying to out-do each other. Plus, there is a huge "bullying" factor in nursing and any organization with women has some form of a pecking order. This behavior usually starts in school age girls where there is a particular group of "leaders, followers" and this filters over to the work environment when adulthood is reached. Plus, I think the stress of working in the nursing field promotes some out-lashing of emotions. There is no definitive reason for why nurses do what they do, I don't know if there has ever been extensive research to indicate why it continues. My input is just from observation and experience in the field. It does get very old, and yes, the high-school mentality needs to stop. We are working adults taking care of really sick people in a busy, understaffed environment. Why would anyone want to make things more intense??

SmilingBluEyes

20,964 Posts

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

I have found many nurses to be the most passive-aggressive people I have ever met. I think often, the job gets to us, the stress and all, and some of us "fight back" the only way we think we can, by being busy-body gossips. I have learned I need to NOT participate in the gossip myself, and keep my nose to the grindstone and stay out of the drama. If they talk about me behind my back, so be it. It's none of my business what others think of me, anyway. Stay out of it; your mental health will be better for it. You can't stop others from doing this; don't even try. Just ignore them.

Editorial Team / Admin

Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN

6 Articles; 11,658 Posts

Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.
It is not just in nursing, but virtually any work environment where people work together.

Fixed that for you. Some of the men I work with can gossip circles around some of the women. Let's not use such stereotypes when they aren't accurate.

psu_213, BSN, RN

3,878 Posts

Specializes in Emergency, Telemetry, Transplant.

I am not going to add anything new to this other than to say to the OP, discuss this with Margaret personally. If we (staff in my ED) hear a patient scream "Shut the heck up" at a nurse in the ED, security will be called. Just some helpful advice for the future.

ceccia

269 Posts

because they literally have nothing better to do and nothing else going on in their lives. i don't get involved in drama at work and could not care less about what anyone else is doing or saying, because i've got a zillion other projects/ adventures going on outside of work and my mentality is "clock in, make $, get out and get on with real life".

iscreambiebah

13 Posts

"clock in, make $, get out and get on with real life."

Do you like your job?

iscreambiebah

13 Posts

What about the first amendment

SionainnRN

914 Posts

Specializes in Emergency Room, Trauma ICU.
What about the first amendment

What about the first amendment??

iscreambiebah

13 Posts

Freedom

of speech

SionainnRN

914 Posts

Specializes in Emergency Room, Trauma ICU.
Freedom

of speech

Okay you're going to actually have to complete your thought instead of just typing some random words. What does freedom of speech have to do with people gossiping? Cause freedom of speech has nothing to do with gossip.

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