Where are all of the attitudes of new nurses coming from? Did they teach you this in nursing school? Did your preceptors teach you this? I am stunned every day to hear new nurses confidently saying things to patients that do not make any sense. The new nurse seems to think that as long as they say it with confidence, it will somehow make sense.
For example, the patient and their family asked about the medication doses the patient was receiving. At home, the patient took different doses than what was prescribed in the hospital. The new nurse said "The reason the dose is different is that the doctors do not like to give you too many medications while in the hospital". Nurses are not doctors and do not speak for doctors. SHE SHOULD HAVE SAID "I will talk to the doctor about your concerns and get back to you". The medication was for seizures and the patient had not had a seizure since the dose was increased.
I believe patients when they tell me that they asked the nurse before me to follow up on something and nothing was ever done. The new nurses do not even document that the question was raised by the patient.
NEW NURSES: You are not doctors. Just because you say something with confidence, does not make what you said believable. That patient is your responsibility. You do not need to "like them". You do need to take care of them.
Any other nurses out there have experience with new nurse attitudes?
Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
This happened to me as well with a particular instructor that I had for clinicals; it happened TWICE in the same clinical!
The looks on her face was priceless...priceless
That woman really hated me and a classmate of mine. She made our lives so miserable during that rotation that we finally went to the director of the program. The instructor backed off a little. At the end of each rotation we got to evaluate our instructors. I wrote a blistering evaluation. When we met so she could give me my eval., she started crying when she talked to me about the eval. I gave her. ("Why didn't you tell me if there was a problem? I had no idea you felt this way!") I couldn't believe her BS.
That woman really hated me and a classmate of mine. She made our lives so miserable during that rotation that we finally went to the director of the program. The instructor backed off a little. At the end of each rotation we got to evaluate our instructors. I wrote a blistering evaluation. When we met so she could give me my eval., she started crying when she talked to me about the eval. I gave her. ("Why didn't you tell me if there was a problem? I had no idea you felt this way!") I couldn't believe her BS.
HA what :poop:
I had a meeting with the director (who was my advisor as well)... needless to say I ended up having her in my last practicum...I REFUSED for her to get in me in a position for me to even fail...I rocked that clinical and got pinned..
The good part in our poopy experiences is our success, and our beautiful thin skin
After reading the part where the OP states she believes the patients when they say that asked the nurse prior to follow up on something, I thought, "ahhhhhhh, so that's what this is all about". My thoughts then were that she came on duty with a patient or two requesting something that would require that the nurse come to a screeching halt with the usual chaotic, beginning-of-the-shift routines, put in a page to the physician, sit and wait, with the chart open, for the doctor to call back, (because we all know how the doctors just LOVE to be placed on hold), thereby throwing him/her behind with her duties, med passes, other patients, and probably an admission that followed him/her up on the elevator, before s/he can even get started. That being the case, I know EXACTLY how s/he feels! This has nothing to do with being a new nurse or an old nurse; it's about being a nurse period who probably got one-too-many requests when it came close to quitting time. We've all been in that position before. In the OP's case, the nurse involved just HAPPENED to be newer than she/he was, possibly creating an inappropriate cause-and-effect theory. (I do try to dress up some of the BS responses that the doctor provides, in the interest of patient satisfaction, though.)
All of this may be an assumptive stretch, but, what if.......?
If we know why a patient had a dosage change to a medication why wouldn't we tell the patient?
In fact, I would say a prudent nurse is always up to date on any order changes and the rationale behind them.
I'm "just" a LPN and I work in LTC, but I make an effort to suss out why medication changes are made when I see them. If depekote is lowered I'll flip through the chart to find out "ah, their serum valporic acid level was high" or something. or maybe the resident has been acting lethargic lately and some meds have been reduced as a result.
When I know these things, I'm prepared to answer questions from the patient or family when they arise. I would have more confidence in a nurse who seemed informed and self-assured than I would in a nurse who kept saying "I'll ask the doctor" all the time.
Part of my role in administering medications is knowing the rationale behind them as it pretains to the treatment plan. If all they needed was someone to blindly pop pills according to the MAR and say "ask the doctor", they might as well fire me and let the CNAs pass the meds.
One of the nurses responsibilities is to educate their patients- I don't understand why that wouldn't include medication education. why study all about pharmacology if you can't share you knowledge with your patient?
OP was just venting about something that a NEWER nurse did that obviously made a bad shift for them. Maybe OP needs to remember what it was like to be BRAND NEW and perhaps offer support and advice. Except good advice... don't go yelling at the brand new nurse that it's the doctors job to educate patients about their medication and they should just pop out the pills and walk away.
Where are all of the attitudes of new nurses coming from? Did they teach you this in nursing school? Did your preceptors teach you this? I am stunned every day to hear new nurses confidently saying things to patients that do not make any sense. The new nurse seems to think that as long as they say it with confidence, it will somehow make sense.
For example, the patient and their family asked about the medication doses the patient was receiving. At home, the patient took different doses than what was prescribed in the hospital. The new nurse said "The reason the dose is different is that the doctors do not like to give you too many medications while in the hospital". Nurses are not doctors and do not speak for doctors. SHE SHOULD HAVE SAID "I will talk to the doctor about your concerns and get back to you". The medication was for seizures and the patient had not had a seizure since the dose was increased.
I believe patients when they tell me that they asked the nurse before me to follow up on something and nothing was ever done. The new nurses do not even document that the question was raised by the patient.
NEW NURSES: You are not doctors. Just because you say something with confidence, does not make what you said believable. That patient is your responsibility. You do not need to "like them". You do need to take care of them.
Any other nurses out there have experience with new nurse attitudes?
OP, you clearly had a bad shift. But I have really no idea what you're saying here. I hope that venting helped, even if the rest of us are perplexed about what you mean. But if you're going to vent publicly, you might want to consider the impact of labels such as "new nurse" ... and be sure that you really want to make such sweeping generalizations before putting them out there.
Whoa, let's back up here. Your complaint was that the nurse in question explained a medication to a patient. She may have spoken to the physician already and that physician may have said that the intent was to decrease the medications the patient was on while in the hospital-- not just because he was in the hospital, but because changing antiseizure meds IS best done while under observation for some patients. Perhaps not. Perhaps you misunderstood. Whatever, it wouldn't be the first time that a nurse of any experience level said something you yourself may not have chosen to say.
HOWEVER, and this is a biggie, you are wrong when you say the nurse "cannot speak for the physician" regarding medications because medications are prescribed by physicians. As a blanket statement this is wrong on many levels, the most obvious of which being that we are the ones who do most of the medication teaching. Of course it behooves the nurse to have a good grasp of the rationales for the meds, refer the patient to the physician for medical-only questions, and to chart a patient concern. These she apparently failed to do. I don't agree with your assumption that all such communications are inappropriate...nor are inaccurate ones limited to new nurses.
To piggyback off of your statement, sometimes a nurse has to exercise better judgment and hold medications because of a patient's rapid or unexpected change. We wouldn't wait to see what the doctor thinks as the patient is starting to code. I think the OP is being hypercritical or that she may just have a problem with this particular new nurse.
I always look drugs up before I give them just because you always need to know what and why you're giving a patient a particular med (i.e. six rights of medication administration). However, in my nursing program it was taught that in not every instance will the most experienced nurse be able to offer information to the client---a prime example is when a new diagnosis or lab result is available but the doctor has yet to see the patient. In those instances, you will find yourself saying, "I'll have to ask the doctor" because failure to do so could end up costing you your job. We all walk a very fine line of autonomy and interdependency when it comes to nursing. However, I don't mind.
....waiting for the OP to come back....
This happened to me as well with a particular instructor that I had for clinicals; it happened TWICE in the same clinical!
LadyFree28, BSN, LPN, RN
8,429 Posts
Hmmm...
....waiting for the OP to come back....