Title says it all . Second semester baby nurse in clinicals at a major hospital.
Patients = Awesome
Most Nurses = Very sweet and helpful
Some nurses are rude, terse, horrible with patients, horrible with students and horrible with each other.
To those nurses I say this, please retire.
Its only a matter of time before management figures out they can live without you and hire some very hungry and very competent new grads that want to be there to fill your dusty shoes....
word...
sadly the vast majority of the time these happen to also be charge nurses....in charge of what? Misery?
"Then, there are the managers who don't understand that we don't work for them ... they work for us. "
Wow well therein lies the problem. it is true that the staff is primarily responsible for delivering the product to customers.
However, make no mistake that in a well run organization the staff understands that they answer to management....not the other way around.
In a hypothetical well run organization, if mid and upper level management observed first line managers running about trying to placate the staff rather than ensuring the staff were performing at acceptable levels, those first line managers would be gone.
I guess there was once a nursing shortage and this is where the hesitation to fire staff stems from....
With the pipeline of new nurses entering the workforce the scales are going to change.....and the entitlement attitude that I see is going to fade away....
Anyway, time will tell, I realize that many of you have many years exp being a nurse and I have none, only the experience of a student half way done. However I do have 25 years of management experience...
Also please understand that management especially first line management cannot take on an ogre like overbearing position and expect the staff to respond favorably. Management must supply the proper tools and positive reinforcement and do their utmosst to maintain good morale.....
However, management must always act to ensure that the staff maintains proper respect for management.....
anyway.....
One of the best ways to maintain good morale is to show the staff, the vast majority being great employees, that management is not shy in pruning a bad apple to maintain a healthy tree....
And as Forest Gump would say...Thats all I have to say about that.....
Ah, now you've touched on a subject particularly close to my heart....
As a former manager, Mindlor, you will know the term "core business". In health care, obviously, "core business" is patient care, and as a service-oriented business, those providing that care are central to its success. It follows, therefore, that the function of Administration and Management is to provide the framework and environment in which this can be optimized. In a Private setting, which relies on doctors to bring their business (patients) to the facility, all other departments, including maintenance, stores, pharmacy, acquisitions etc, serve only to support the nursing staff in their efforts to care for their patients and thus ensure that the business flourishes.
Yes, staff are answerable to management if they render poor levels of care, are rude to patients, are careless or undisciplined; however, the converse should also be true. In a well-run facility, staff should be free to voice their dissatisfaction with management if they fail to perform. Trust me on this, there is nothing more soul-destroying than an uncaring, arrogant management style that ignores the input of its highly-trained, experienced staff.
If you make it into management yourself, please remember this, and show your staff the respect they deserve. If you're a good enough leader and take pride in them, they will respond by giving their best.
That you are suddenly concerned about logical fallacies and proper debate etiquette in a thread that starts of with inflammatory name-calling in the title.
However, make no mistake that in a well run organization the staff understands that they answer to management....not the other way around. Wrong ... management most certainly is answerable to staff when they make boneheaded decisions that place our licenses, mental and physical health and, sometimes our lives at risk. They are also accountable when they mandate practice with no attention to whether the means to comply with that mandate are available. If you can't envision an organization in which accountability is reciprocal, I gotta wonder where you got that fancy management degree.
In a hypothetical well run organization, if mid and upper level management observed first line managers running about trying to placate the staff rather than ensuring the staff were performing at acceptable levels, those first line managers would be gone. Here we see the (deliberate?) conflation of advocacy, fairness and collaboration with "placating", also known as the straw man fallacy. One of the best, most effective managers I've worked with was tough ... no placating, handholding or hugs from her ... but she was fair and accountable. When she decided on a policy or mandate, she made darn sure we understood why and had the resources we needed to work with it.
However, management must always act to ensure that the staff maintains proper respect for management..... What would you do to ensure that management maintains proper respect for staff? A management job is not a "divine right" like a midieval aristocracy. In general, outside of basic human courtesy, respect is earned. There's a difference between workers and serfs.
One of the best ways to maintain good morale is to show the staff, the vast majority being great employees, that management is not shy in pruning a bad apple to maintain a healthy tree.... pruning bad apples is laudable ... if that's really what you're doing. If what you're doing is getting rid of staff that push back and hold managers accountable for their poor behavior and poor performance, then you're ensuring a staff that ruled by fear and intimidation ... not very consistent with the "customer service" you're so worried about.
And if you don't like being called an empty suit and disagree with my perception of organizational politics, why not answer my original question: If you don't know what quality nursing is, what makes you think you're in any way qualified to manage it?
And what is your dismissiveness if not its own kind of fallacy: invalidating a point (however clumsily made) by mocking it, as if that proves something.
ETA: In answer to this little threat: "Its only a matter of time before management figures out they can live without you and hire some very hungry and very competent new grads that want to be there to fill your dusty shoes...." I have an interesting little example. The local job situation here is tight, tight, tight, even for experienced nurses. Even so, one of the three major hospitals has such a poor reputation for arrogant/incompetent/abusive management that they still staff more than half their positions with new grads, agency and travellers. Local nurses refuse to work there - even at a starting salary of $35/hr! As a result, the care on their oncology floor is so poor that the local oncologists refuse to admit there unless they have no other choice.
Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.
Let's not go there.........no need to stir the pot, it's at a rolling boil already.
Please, folks, when you see a barrel full of gunpowder, remember that it's generally a good idea to leave it alone. We are all adults who know exactly what is going to happen when someone rips off the lid and drops a burning Ohio Blue Tip into the contents. Best to simply walk away, KWIM?
Specializes in Trauma Surgery, Nursing Management.
"Your patients ARE YOUR CUSTOMERS....
Without you patients you will not have a job."
"However, management must always act to ensure that the staff maintains proper respect for management...."
I am responding because I see a different view here. Yes, our patients are important, and without patients we would not have jobs. On the other hand, if nurses did not have jobs, then MANAGEMENT would not have nurses to manage.
It is elementary to state that respect is a two way street. Have you ever heard the term "Poop runs downhill"? Respect has to start from the top. If employees are not respected, then management will not be respected in turn. Some of the best managers I have worked for exemplified respect by doing small things for their staff-a handwritten note to say "thanks" after a terrible shift in which a staff member worked above and beyond, sharing comments that docs and other co-workers made about what a good job they were doing, asking opinions before implementing changes, including the staff to brainstorm when things are going south on the unit...all of these little things MATTER to us as nurses. We want to know that our managers care about what we think, and we want to be a part of decisions that will affect our working environment.
OP, I sincerely think that you could do a great job in management because you understand it; you understand people and know how important it is to keep morale up, to make staff feel important and productive, and you know the ins and outs of hierarchy. That being said, you still have (and you have admitted this several times in this thread, to your credit) a great deal to learn about nursing. Our jobs are intricate and involve aspects of humanity, compassion, law, scope of practice, and rigid timelines that you may not have been exposed to yet. However, I think that once you get into nursing and understand the challenges that nurses face, you will be able to bring a plethora of new ideas, as well as a new found respect, to nursing.
I wish you well in this. Experience is a steadfast teacher, and you have lots of it! I commend you for going into nursing. I hope that you find the congruity you seek.
Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
Dear friend I do not recall placing you or anyone else in any sort of group whatsoever, including the group that this post was directed toward. Now if you are placing yourself into any particular group then so be it.
I would humbly encourage you to read the thread....my initial observation is that you may have scanned it in bits and pieces and may have taken certain elements out of context.
Nope - I've read the whole thing from the initial "in your face" tone and derogatory language (btw what did "RETIRE" replace??), a perfunctory request "to talk about it", the jog back over to hostile, a lot of annoying jargony overfamiliar language, and a very touching non-smart-*** ical post about your experiences with kind and gentle nurses delivered with the obvious message that your goal all along was to take us to school after the assembled had increased in enough numbers.
If you had posted that one first you wouldn't have broken the record for numbers of kudos disagreeing with you in the first ten pages of this thread. I think indeed you could learn a lot from this thread, as you should- you expected it to be taken down by morning the next day! People who are unaware of the reaction they are creating don't say things like that.
One of the most humorous end results of a multi-sided discussion, to me, is when one side or another runs out of logical and insightful things to say and resorts to emotional appeals, ad hominem attacks and other fallacies commonly used in debate...
Please feel free to analyze my posts and then come back and tell me the results. You might be right. I try to take criticism like a big giirl - sometimes it works!
and the back and forth could go on ad nauseum......ultimately it is goiing to be up to management to make sure employees are in place that accurately live the values that the company is trying to present to the public...
By that I specifically mean that management must remain hypervigilant and actively remove people from the payroll and add new blood until the ship is righted....
The best managers recognize that they are role models and must be hypervigilant to ensure that they exhibit the type of behaviors they expect from their staff. They have contact with their staff, even if it means coming in on night shift, weekends, or holidays to make sure they touch base with staff who are working those hours. They understand the core values of the institution and communicate them to their employees. They spend time on the floors to understand the challenges faced by their staff and to be able to communicate to upper level management those challenges.
However, there are many bitter, dried up MANAGERS who need to retire or get booted back to patient care. I'm talking about the pointy-haired, pumps and pearls set, the managers who disappear into their offices M-F 8-5 and rarely venture onto the floors. I'm talking about the ones who tell staff, for example, that gossiping is not tolerated and yet gossip about the staff themselves. Some managers prefer to hire their friends, won't fire lazy workers because they're best buds from high school or are related to the administrator or the most prominent families in town. Some managers are bullies and others have been promoted to the level of their incompetence. Surely you've heard of the Peter Principle.
Unfortunately, most of my managers have been ill-suited for the job. This is not to say that all managers are awful---it's dangerous to generalize---and several of my friends have been managers. My friends, who were good managers, worked harder than they ever did as staff nurses. They were dedicated to their staffs as well as to their institution. Some left because of cognitive dissonance. They felt the demands of administration, particularly in cutting costs, were incompatible with the institution's core values. Others left because of the politics.
If you left your previous management job because of cognitive dissonance, I'm sorry, but I think you may find that the incompatibility between administrative demands and the way you want to practice nursing, as a bedside nurse or a manager, will make your previous experiences pale in comparison. I wish you the best.
Since when does a bad apple on the tree threaten the tree itself? A bad apple only speads rot when stored with other apples. You prune limbs & dead leaves, not fruit on the vine.
Your management of apple trees would be considered incompetent. Do you know more about nursing? My point is management requires understanding of the product or service. And a Napoleanic attitutide makes for unhappy employees.
I'll give you credit though, in a medium where emotion is difficult to convey, you are able to be convincingly condescending.
And, not for nothing, money only becomes unimportant when you have a lot of it. Nice severance/retirement package, huh?
Let's not go there.........no need to stir the pot, it's at a rolling boil already.
Please, folks, when you see a barrel full of gunpowder, remember that it's generally a good idea to leave it alone. We are all adults who know exactly what is going to happen when someone rips off the lid and drops a burning Ohio Blue Tip into the contents. Best to simply walk away, KWIM?
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:yeah:
mindlor
1,341 Posts
Ironic on what levels? How so?
Lets discuss it....