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 Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.
Also, could you please quote the statements that you felt were condescending and overbearing?
I am sorry if anything I said came across that way and or offended you.....
I think it's mainly the title. I would be willing to bet a good part of the posters saw the title, got angry, read the first post while already upset and responded. The title alone evokes a negative emotion and sets the bar.
You mentioned you had grandchildren and are in school. Imagine seeing a title saying "old dried out grandma nursing students taking up space" and then the poster goes on to say they can't keep up, they tire easily or whatever else. Immediately reading that you're going to get defensive and angry and only see any negative in the post, even if the post clarified more and was more specific.
I agree that there are some truly horrible, bitter nurses out there who make life miserable for everyone around them (except their brownnosing toadies, perhaps) - but I disagree that it has anything to do with older age groups.
The most horrible sociopathic nurse I have ever encountered - a person so evil I hope to never see her again - was exactly my age....
Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.
True!! As a mod is there anyway you can edit the title for me and remove the word old and change retire to maybe quit or leave?
Absolutely and I think that would be a good idea because setting that immediate reaction aside and further reading your posts, I completely see where you are coming from and agree with a good part of it. But it's hard to put that initial negativity aside. I can't edit this forum but can ask for it to be done or if Moogie is still on maybe she can. :)
Specializes in PICU now, Peds and med-surg in the past.
First off, please don't attempt to be a nurse manager without a MINIMUM of 5 years (10 is better) as a bedside nurse. No nurse has ANY business trying to be another nurse's boss without having been in their shoes for a significant amount of time. Secondly, sure, there are some nurses who don't have the best attitude but I would rather the crabby old nurse who knows her stuff over the customer service puppet with the sunshine personality who couldn't resuscitate their way out of a paper bag. Sorry, but the whole customer service thing is a joke. We are nurses, not servants and that's what the whole customer service movement wants, for us to be servants.
Please, go into nursing for the desire to care for patients, not the desire to get away from the bedside ASAP while telling people how to do the job YOU don't want to do. I firmly believe that ALL managers should have to keep their clinical feet wet.
I have a degree in management and tons of management experience, as soon as possible it is my goal to become a nurse manager and guess what, It is going to my mission in life to bring customer service back to nursing care. Remember the customer? Yes, the one in the bed, yes, thats right, the patient.
Mindlor, I can only comment on how I perceive the tone of your posts. It has nothing to do with the title for me. It was more the typed repitition "Leslie Leslie,Leslie" and " be advised" and" yes, yes I agree, let us all be careful when we judge" and "wow, hm, well, here's the deal". It just has a very negative flavor to it. If this is the way you are accustomed to speaking, you may not even know you do it but I do think if a nurse had to deal with even perceived condescending behavior or perceived arrogance (even if it's just a quirk in your way of speaking) it would put them off....especially since you are a student.
I'm confused as to how meeting your patients' needs takes away from Nursing. Complaining about bringing people something to drink - what is that preventing you from accomplishing? It's an act of caring and kindness.
It's a complicated problem. Sometimes it genuinely is an issue of the nurse's ego. We (all of us) would like to be treated with respect as the healthcare professionals we are. Not many nursing students would endorse the image of nurses as the doctors' handmaidens, expected to rise when the physician enters the room or be berated over a mistake and/or difference of opinion. Should we kowtow to some overbearing jerk just because he/she has an MD? Should we grovel and fawn for a doctor's approval? Okay, so now this doctor gets admitted as a patient...what now? Do we give him the VIP treatment and shortchange our other patients to placate him? Okay, so now let's say he isn't a doctor or on the board of directors of the hospital or some local celebrity or whatever. What if our patient is just a regular person who treats us like menial servants and expects to monopolize our time? Does a patient who is not a VIP more deserving of the VIP treatment?
But it's a lot more than ego that makes nurses roll their eyes when management starts talking customer service. One problem with killing patients with kindness is that it can sometimes literally kill them. One of the most common causes of hospitalization is patients' failure to distinguish between what they want and what they need. I am not arguing that that paternalistic statement needs to be our motto. I'm generally more inclined to argue for patient autonomy in deciding what they value. I recently went through a bad night dealing with a patient who wanted to smoke. I smoke. I do my duty to remind patients that smoking is bad for their health and offer what alternatives I can, but I have too much respect for them to nag. Other adults have the same right I do to make an informed decision whether the pleasure of smoking is worth the risk. I admire and congratulate those who make the right choice, and I'll probably see the ones who make the wrong choice at the smoking booth.
Trouble is, my patient who wanted to exercise what I consider his right to smoke was not ambulatory. He wanted someone to take him outside in a wheelchair, and we were all jerks for not doing it. At one point I was interrupted in one of several tirades with a call that another patient was hypoglycemic. I told the would-be smoker that I had to go because another patient had very low blood sugar. He told me that was easy--give her some orange juice and crackers. In his mind, her hypoglycemic coma would be a small price to pay to meet his urgent need to smoke. (During the course of the night, I think he probably gathered that I was getting annoyed with him. I was. I wasn't abusive, or even rude, and I understand very well what nicotine withdrawal is like, but it's hard to be all smiles and sunshine when people are being rude and abusive because they don't get their way.)
Now, a glass of water or an extra pillow is very different from being wheeled outside for a smoke. Up to a point. But the patient who gets irate about waiting five minutes for a glass of water while you help someone else to the bathroom is also being selfish and unreasonable. So you say, "I'm sorry, I was with another patient. I'll be happy to get you one, now. In the future, though, if you were to ask the clerk for a glass of water, rather than just asking for your nurse, an aide might be free to bring your water more quickly, or another nurse might." And what you get, all too often, is, "What if it wasn't a glass of water I wanted? Am I supposed to soil myself because you're 'too busy,' to take me to the bathroom? Too busy doing what? Gossiping with the other nurses? What if I was having a heart attack?"
There are times--a lot of them, really--when bring some icewater or an extra pillow or some pain pills and a smile isn't too much to ask. There are patients--a lot of them, really--who realize if you aren't right there the moment they call out, you might have been doing something more urgent for someone else. There are patients who are on the call light every hour because they're scared or lonely and just need to see you and know you care about them. These are all opportunities for a compassionate nurse to offer good customer service--and a lot of us object to the terms "customer," or "client," because it understates the level of commitment we feel. And because we are not robonurses, we do notice the ingratitude implied when we are treated like handmaidens, and the selfishness of disregarding other patients' needs to satisfy ones whims.
So, the wonder is not that some nurses are bitter and jaded. It's more a wonder that more nurses aren't, after being chastised for poor customer service because one patient complained to management about waiting an hour for a prn laxative while the nurse was pushing hydralazine for one patient and dilaudid for another and listening to another with terminal cancer talk about her grandkids and keeping another from falling over the bedrails. "What is that preventing you from accomplishing?" Not much.
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~Mi Vida Loca~RN, ASN, RN
5,259 Posts
I think it's mainly the title. I would be willing to bet a good part of the posters saw the title, got angry, read the first post while already upset and responded. The title alone evokes a negative emotion and sets the bar.
You mentioned you had grandchildren and are in school. Imagine seeing a title saying "old dried out grandma nursing students taking up space" and then the poster goes on to say they can't keep up, they tire easily or whatever else. Immediately reading that you're going to get defensive and angry and only see any negative in the post, even if the post clarified more and was more specific.