Aggressive Nurses

Nurses General Nursing

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I must be getting old. I think I may have been that nurse. Impatiently listening to report, flipping thru the chart or the computer, gathering info, not waiting to hear it. Interupting with my most important questions. Feeling ticked off at the start of shift over the incompetancy of others.

Now I am so put off by this behavior. It makes me nervous, rankles me and makes me feel less confident in the nurse who acts this way. I find it destructive and kills any team building. I work with some very aggressive nurses now.

Your thoughts and experiences regarding this?

may i ask- did you stick up for this nurse? This is a type of "bullying" if you will and gives our profession a bad rep. We need to help one another by supporting each other!

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may i ask- did you stick up for this nurse? This is a type of "bullying" if you will and gives our profession a bad rep. We need to help one another by supporting each other!

If you're talking to me, then yes I did. I had her come into an empty room with me and give me a quick report, and I told her to try not to let the other nurses get to her like that. I told her that sometimes the particular nurse she had the problem with comes across as gruff, but if you don't let her get to you, you'll see that she's actually a pretty nice person. I told her to go home and get some rest (she had had a very rough night before all this started anyway), and then gave report to the oncoming nurse myself. I then talked to the oncoming nurse and asked her to please remember that this girl is new and nervous and that she can come across as being a bit intimidating at times, and to please try to be patient with the new nurses. Like I said she's usually a nice person, but this night she must have been in a bad mood or something, because all she did was grunt and write down what I said in report, and then leave the room.

And if you're not talking to me, sorry! I assume that you were since my post seems like the only one that is an appropirate question to ask about...in future, it might help if you address your question to a particular member or include a quote so we know which post you're refering to! :nurse:

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Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.

Regarding aggressive nurses, I have a day shift nurse who I hate giving report to. She has a preceptee with her, a new RN and she was questioning me why I took the patient of the xigris at the time I did. I dont know if she really understood how the xigris works on the body, so I explained to her that it was both time and he had to have a procedure completed and his INR was very high. When I came back to work that night, she made the family members mad for some reason, I didnt ask the family members, but inside I understood and left it at that.

On another occassion she berated me because I left a person on IV fluids who was recovering from a GI Bleed. They were still ordered, the patient was not going into fluid overload, everything was fine. She has never worked in any other setting other than the ICU as I learned.

I feel that her aggressiveness is sometimes based on her ignorance, or at least that is my perception.

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Specializes in Cardiac Telemetry, ED.

I don't even like getting report anymore. I'd rather just look everything up myself. The reason is that half the time, I get inaccurate information anyway. I've learned to never, ever rely on what I was told in report. Always look at the information with my own eyes. I don't even write down half of what they tell me in report, since I'll be looking it up for myself anyway.

What I really want from the offgoing shift is to please, look at your charts and make sure you've ordered those labs or that EKG, make sure you charted that you gave that Coumadin. Basically, I've turned shift report into a quick chart check and double checking of documentation. The offgoing nurse might not like it, but I've been burned way too many times by day shift nurses going off duty and leaving too many loose ends.

I don't want to come off as aggressive, so I try to be polite when I ask "Did that EKG get done?" or "Did you give that Coumadin?".

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Specializes in General Medicine.

RNs who act that way come across to me as unprofessional, ill mannered, and just unhappy either in their personal or professional life... A good RN would not act this way...

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Specializes in Cardiac Telemetry, ED.
RNs who act that way come across to me as unprofessional, ill mannered, and just unhappy either in their personal or professional life... A good RN would not act this way...

To which post are you referring?

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Specializes in MSP, Informatics.

Sometimes when I would go into work, the day nurse would be so far behind, that I would just look in the Kardex, check some labs, and start my shift without report. It was usually the same nurse each time.... and her being behind had not so much to do with how busy they were, but how unorganized she is. Then later, after I had done my Vitals, started charting, she would try to give me report. Which most of the time was worthless, or totally contradicting the assessment I had just done on the patients!

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Specializes in Med Surg, Ortho.

i come more calling it "intimidating" rather than "aggresive"

since being a new grad last may, i've had several nurses that really try to intimidate me and still do. i still have questions in report and some times

these intimidating nurses will try to make me feel stupid, and must say, they do a pretty good job when they want to. although, most are starting to be much more respectful towards me and treating me like part of the team.

i asked my charge nurse about it and she agreed that some nurses like to

intimidate like this, but to just ignore it. i guess it's their ego, who knows. i

know i'll always be kinder to new nurses when i get into this situation.

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Specializes in General Medicine.
To which post are you referring?

Impatiently listening to report, flipping thru the chart or the computer, gathering info, not waiting to hear it. Interrupting with my most important questions. Feeling ticked off at the start of shift over the incompetency of others.

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Specializes in Telemetry & Obs.
i come more calling it "intimidating" rather than "aggresive"

since being a new grad last may, i've had several nurses that really try to intimidate me and still do. i still have questions in report and some times

these intimidating nurses will try to make me feel stupid, and must say, they do a pretty good job when they want to. although, most are starting to be much more respectful towards me and treating me like part of the team.

i asked my charge nurse about it and she agreed that some nurses like to

intimidate like this, but to just ignore it. i guess it's their ego, who knows. i

know i'll always be kinder to new nurses when i get into this situation.

as a new nurse i, too, experienced the "intimidating" nurse i was *trying* to give report to. she'd never once look at me unless it was to give me some incredulous look and then ask an off-the-wall question. it got so bad i dreaded giving her report. so one evening i was giving her report and she asked yet another dumbfounding question. i gave her the sweetest smile, told her i appreciated her experience and hoped to learn from her so if she'd please please tell me why that was important i'd go right then and there and look up the answer. danged if she didn't back down and from then on has been super nice to me.

kill 'em with kindness is my advice :D

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Specializes in General Medicine.
I don't even like getting report anymore. I'd rather just look everything up myself. The reason is that half the time, I get inaccurate information anyway. I've learned to never, ever rely on what I was told in report. Always look at the information with my own eyes. I don't even write down half of what they tell me in report, since I'll be looking it up for myself anyway.

What I really want from the offgoing shift is to please, look at your charts and make sure you've ordered those labs or that EKG, make sure you charted that you gave that Coumadin. Basically, I've turned shift report into a quick chart check and double checking of documentation. The offgoing nurse might not like it, but I've been burned way too many times by day shift nurses going off duty and leaving too many loose ends.

I don't want to come off as aggressive, so I try to be polite when I ask "Did that EKG get done?" or "Did you give that Coumadin?".

I usually let an RN finish her report and at the end ask her if certain blood test was done, if MD was notified, or the medication was given. I looked up in the policies and procedures of my hospital what the report should include and I just stick to it... I do appreciate RNs making sure I did what I was supposed to (test, meds, documentation etc) especially because I am a new RN but either when it relates to what I am saying at the time or after I am done with the report, otherwise it only makes it hard for me to give a report when I am saying that the other RN is not writing down what I think is important or constantly interrupts me

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When someone interupts me, thats when I realize they are idiots and they can go read thru the chart and figure it out. I hate when you have to spoon feed nurses with info that you yourself learned my researching it. I don't play that game anymore.

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