In it there is article by RN under "sharing" in the index called My Worst Enemy. It is a first hand account by a nurse that makes peace with a controling, critical supervisor. This relationship went on for years. Eventually the supervisor becomes the nurses patient. When the nurse ask the supervisor why she had made her life a nightmare with her hypercritical ways. The supervisor tells her "I knew you had 'some' potential, so I always made a special effort to make you better. If I'd been lax with you or over praised you, would you have tried so hard to become better or would you have been satisfied being mediocre?" I marked the word 'some' because I think she stuck a little dig in there also. Then a little while later they have another conversation about why this supervisor always asked for this particular nurse when she was admitted. "She explained to me that she knew she was ill and was going to get a lot sicker, so she'd put me through what she called a training program. She knew she was going to need me one day to care for her." Ugh! more control, more manipulation. I am really glad for Barbara Totora RN that she made her peace with this woman. However, I find their relationship somewhat sado/masochistic. A long time ago I also found myself with a rare supervisor or instructor like this and I put a lot of distance between myself and those persons. I immediately recognized that the person subscribed to some sort of old fashioned "improvment through critizism idea" and I for one was not going to go along with it. I very quickly guessed it was not me that was the problem it was them. It is alright to put up with something like this for a little while or in small doses but the author herself says, "Why, Why did you hound me and torment me, yell at me more than my own mother?" Like I said, Ugh! I just would like to get someone elses opinion on the article. I quit subscribing to this particular Nursing Mag many years ago. I thought I would try it for one more year just to see if it had changed. The articles they run always make me feel guilty because I would never do what the nurses they feature do. What do they do? They always seem to play the victim. The magazine just seems to reflect managment attitudes that the nurse is allways wrong. There is no empowerment there. Once again I would appreciate some input from some one else who read the article. By the way, I won't be renewing.
