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?
Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
It honestly never occurred to me to give a charge nurse a piece of my mind (other than while I was driving home- I shoulda said that .. blankety blank :angthts: grrrr....)or refuse an assignment, because you never know how a person who has the authority to make my life a living hell if they should choose to do will react to an approach like that.
But I did at times sulk - which was counterproductive too, especially when the charge nurse got wind of my nonverbal expressions and fell all over herself apologizing for giving me all the most labor-intensive patients - I felt really low for not having the guts to ask her like an adult why she assigned things that way - she did't mean to.
Ever since then I try really hard to find a middle ground not always successully but worth it in the end.
title says it all . second semester baby nurse in clinicals at a major hospital.
patients = awesome
most nurses = very sweet and helpful
"sweet and helpful" does not necessarily indicate competence.
some nurses are rude, terse, horrible with patients, horrible with students and horrible with each other.
yeah. so are some auto mechanics, grocery store clerks, nuclear physicists, neighbors, children, and spouses. if you are going to go around demanding that the people you encounter everyday be always sweetness and light, you are going to be very, very disappointed with life. please lower your expectations, now, before you waste anymore of your time on useless emotional reactions to people who do not consider you the center of the universe.
to those nurses i say this, please retire.
hahaha! well, just wait until you are middle-aged or older, don't want to retire, and some snotty girlie of a nursing student says that to you. "those nurses" probably think you are a fool. you are lucky your head is still attached to your shoulders. as an older student, i get really tired of chickies who want anyone older than themselves to give up their position(s) just because some newcomer walks in. you have to earn employment. if there are no vacancies, move on and stop complaining that others took all the slots. would you give up your job just because some young snot wants it? no, i bet you would not.
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....
everyone knows that a rn needs to have at least one year of actual nursing experience to be considered worthy of hire. so just pipe down, and cool your jets. you are still holding the short straw, dear. those first jobs are d*** hard to come by, nowadays.
word...
sadly the vast majority of the time these happen to also be charge nurses....in charge of what? misery?
one other comment about seemingly jaded veterans of any career, not just nursing: trends and fads in management, performance evaluation criteria, tactics to increase customer focus, etc. come and go like buses and streetcars used to. after you have spent 10 or 20 or 30 or more years in a profession, you learn that you must look out for number 1, because nobody else can look out for number 1 like number 1 can. you learn that if allowed to, management will walk all over employees and will take advantage of them. if you are too nice, and too sweet, that you might be considered likable, but will still be a very likable doormat. and that competent but not sweet is generally preferred to sweet but not competent.
OP, just for the record, I disagree with most of what you've posted. I as well think you have come accross as very arrogant, condescending and rude.
However, my question to you is-why not just get a health care administration/management degree instead of nursing? You seem to have all the answers. Heck, you should teach the program.
Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.
Your point of view is mistaken. You've said what's on your mind, and you certainly have that right, but those of us who've found at least some of what you've said obnoxious or offensive, or simply mistaken, have as much right to our opinions and are in all likelihood quite as capable of rational thought. You made the choice to speak of old, bitter, dried-up nurses. You later retracted the term, "old," but continue to speak of eager young nurses coming up to set things right. There's nothing wrong with being young (even just new) and idealistic. Quite a lot of nurses enter the field that way. Those of us who are successful in the field necessarily learn to be realists. There are, of course, those in every walk of life who mistake cynicism for realism, but I would suggest that inexperience can sometimes lead one to mistake realism for cynicism. A lot of the resistance to the sort of customer service model you advocate (and you truly aren't the first to do so) has nothing to do with a lack of care or compassion, but a profound weariness with what seem like endless attempts to create cookie-cutter scripts and patient care templates that might have a place in industrial engineering, but aren't nearly adequate for nursing, which is a profoundly human endeavor. At its finest, the nurse-patient relationship is an extraordinarily intimate connection, and the art of nursing is the expression of something which is often ineffable through a medium which is almost infinitely variable. We perform our art against a whole array of currents: patients who don't really want to be well, bean-counters who care more about the bottom line than about human suffering, regulators and administrators who are so obsessed with standardization that they would leave no room for excellence, other than in lip service.
I have cared for dying patients with a spouse of several decades at their bedside, have seen love of a depth and breadth that no teen ardor could possibly rival. I've heard sighs convey a range of emotions intermingled that no poet can put into words. And I have seen nurses whose passion for their field has a similar maturity, for whom nursing is no longer what they do, but what they are. And when you speak of some horrible, heartless excuse for a nurse, and the first thing you notice is that they are old, when you would instruct those who practice in a realm of nuance and attention to details with slogans and generalizations, well, it does get a little annoying.
Last night I watched a first year nurse half my age perform magnificently. I kid you not that I'm a little choked up writing about it, and the moreso because her patient, who had every reason in the world to be angry or bitter, understood exactly what that brave little girl was doing for her. I vow to you here that, to my limited ability, whosoever would eat that young one is going to have to chew through some gristle to get there. I also watched a bitter, nasty young patient try to take a bite out of an older, experienced nurse, and when I asked that nurse to kiss some butt and make nice until shift change, for the good of the unit, she did it. She and I both know I owe her one, and I won't be asking her to do it again, tonight.
This is not a simple business. Like a Mandlebrot curve, it is complex on many levels. There is no single way to get a patient onto a bedpan; there is probably no single way to provide healthcare to a nation. Every intervention is an experiment. I spoke earlier of some unusual circumstances in which what my patient needed most at a moment was a kiss on the cheek. I was a little surprised no one pointed out how unprofessional that was--and it was. I've debated at length on other threads whether nursing is a profession or a trade. I've tended to like the skilled trade view, because it's practical and down to earth, but it occurs to me that what I've really disliked about the professional model--and no less the business model--is that it belittles my art. Marginally competent practitioner though I am, I am a nurse, and it is nurses who give nursing its meaning. Even the bitter ones are part of that. The tone and content of your post leads me to believe you don't get that. But it may show some promise that you care enough to be angry at nurses who don't do the job justice. Others have pointed out that bitter, dried up nurses don't retire because they can't afford to. I suggest you consider that administrators don't get rid of them for the same reason--they can't afford to. If you really want to improve the state of nursing, figure out a way to ensure that fewer magnificent young nurses like I spoke of become bitter and dried up. If you want to look at our profession as an industry, here's a simple bit of economics: patients are plentiful, skilled nurses are scarce. And those eager, hungry nurses in the pipeline cost a lot of money to get up to speed.
I've been here almost 9 years, and this has to be among the top 5 posts I've ever had the pleasure of reading. Every word is pure unvarnished truth and wisdom, and every one of us would do well to take these words to heart and live them out as we progress in our careers. Well said, nursemike. :yeah::yeah:
I was studying all day for a nursing theory test and a pharm test, I will go back and read what I have missed and reply accordingly once I get a little sleep...
Well that's your problem right there. Studying all day and then arguing with and about old, bitter, dried up nurses all night would skew anyone's view. Get out, live a little, broaden your horizons and don't make nursing and nurses your entire life and you will find it easier to let stuff go.
Gotta run.......time to go pick up my prempro refill
See lilmama, there goes the ageist stereotype again. Young, old, experienced...inexperienced...whatever. You will come across all kinds.
It's no wonder why nursing is in the mess it is. You have this:
Bitter old nurses vs. Lazy, entitled inept new grad
LPN vs RN
ADN vs BSN
LTC nurses are not real nurses vs the "real" nurses
Those who are "called" vs those nurses who only want money
CNAs vs RN/LPN
Where does it end???
Don't forget nights vs. days!
It doesn't end because people don't want it to. Each group can snicker amongst themselves about how much better they are than the other to get an ego boost. Too bad it becomes a coping mechanism for poor self perception. Ever notice the worst thing in the world is the thing you don't do?
It is interesting that many of you assumed I was a female..
Why? Because I am a nursing student?
I am not a female. I also find it interesting that nurses who happen to be female are referred to as nurses. From my insanely limited experience, nurses who happen to be male are referred to as male nurses...
Why is this? Can a nurse just be a nurse without gender entering in to the equation?
As for everything else it all boils down to opinions. They are based on individual experiences and we all have them and are entitled to them.
I think much of what I have said is hypothetical in that time will have to pass to see if my premises were accurate or not..
So that said, time shall pass and at a later time I shall return to review this thread. In the mean time, it is study study study...
Let us all be kind to our clients, to each other, and especially to ourselves.....life is short, carpe diem
Oh dear lord, here isa big problem right? People don't take the time to read before they reply? Where do you see that I said its ALL hypothetical? I said that much of what was said is hypothetical and that does not mean all.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
oh dear lord, here isa big problem right? people don't take the time to read before they reply? where do you see that i said its all hypothetical? i said that much of what was said is hypothetical and that does not mean all.
please read....
really really sad
wasn't it you who posted "let's be kind"? kindness could start with you . . . and you've shown precious little of it here.
:yeah:.thumb.jpg.5aa4d55557c0228e31b94de19666bbbb.jpg){kind=small}
nursel56
7,122 Posts
It honestly never occurred to me to give a charge nurse a piece of my mind (other than while I was driving home- I shoulda said that .. blankety blank :angthts: grrrr....)or refuse an assignment, because you never know how a person who has the authority to make my life a living hell if they should choose to do will react to an approach like that.
But I did at times sulk - which was counterproductive too, especially when the charge nurse got wind of my nonverbal expressions and fell all over herself apologizing for giving me all the most labor-intensive patients - I felt really low for not having the guts to ask her like an adult why she assigned things that way - she did't mean to.
Ever since then I try really hard to find a middle ground not always successully but worth it in the end.