This vile expression implies that experienced nurses do not treat new nurses kindly. My first problem with the statement is that it’s a generalization implying that all nurses are like that. Interestingly, whenever I hear someone utter the expression, I always say, “I don’t do that. Do you?” The person making the statement always says, “Oh no, I don’t, but many others do.” I’ve never heard even one nurse own up to doing this, although some nurses are willing to indict the entire profession. Every time that statement is repeated, it causes harm and casts a dark shadow on every nurse. Say anything enough, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Please note that by moderator consensus some of the "Nurses Eat Their Young" posts will be referred to this thread where there can be an ongoing discussion, rather than several threads saying the same thing.
To students and new grads that are having problems with nurses, please take a moment to read the above link. Is it really the entire profession, every single nurse, or do you need help with one or a few nurses? We will be glad to help you in dealing with those people, but let bury the phrase "Nurses Eat Their Young".
To experienced nurses who claim our profession eats it's young, please take a moment to read it as well and think about it. Also take time to teach, be friendly and nurturing to the new nurse and students on your unit.
Im a second year student who is going through this this quarter. Im new to the forum too, so Hi everyone. I am at my 5th clinical site and the first 4 were outstanding with a few nurses who weren't very helpful..... so be it. This quarter though, is a totally different story. Im absolutely amazed at how horrible this whole hospital is to new hires and students. We had an incident yesterday where the RN was with the student and made a mistake, blamed the student and said the student acted alone. It has gotten to the point where we are going to tell our instructor that we refuse to perform procedures/pass meds and we will just shadow the RNs so we can't be thrown under the bus like this.
Another example, I showed up for report and walked up behind the RN I was working with for the day to hear her complaining about how bad she hates working with students. She turned around and I gladly told her I didn't want to be here either, but I will be kicked out of the program for not completing clinical.
I have read posts about "respect issues" which maybe so, but I have never disrespected anybody. Im a military man, and I give respect where it is due. On the other hand, this RN treated me like I was an idiot and I promise you I have more experience than she does. I was a medic in the infantry for 6 years, did one tour in Iraq, worked in Turkey, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic and so on. I am always respectfull, and I kind of expect the same.
I feel that so far I have worked with some great RNs. I have also worked with quite a few that need to retire. Im new to the field and I don't want to hear about how horrible it is and how hard it is. Im excited to be a nurse, I love this. I definetly feel that the RNs that I have worked with that aren't student or new hire friendly really go out of their way to let you know it though.
Specializes in med surg, geriatric, clinical, pool.
I started this career 2 weeks ago!! I know what does it mean to be eaten... but I try to remind myself I'm there for a kind smile from the patient, to help them. If I see the nurse isn't in good mood I try to ask as little as possible ( I know it isn't the best thing) and just go after her, watch and watch and learn... but sometimes I really want to ask why does she do that, how to prepare--and I can not do that.. I hope I won't give up! Sometimes I get nice words from the patients: 'don't worry, you are a good nurse!' :) and it makes easier
Sorry, but I too got nice compliments from the pts, didn 't do any good. I lost my first job. Guess it wasn't anything I did or it certainly would have counted against me. I went to agency work and loved it. I didn't have to deal with the politics of the work place because I saw first hand how those nurses too treated each other and it wasn't any better.
Working agency I made some very good friends and if I didn't like what I saw I just didn't go back. I usually gave each place 2 chances just incase someone was having a bad day the first time I went there.
In my experience, some do, especially in a hospital/clinical setting. There are many nurses who are unsure of their competence and project these feeling on other nurses in order to feel good about themselves. When I switched to case management and life care planning, this phenomonem pretty much disappeared. I don't know why, but inexperienced nurses were out of the loop, ie. some nurses may have had no one to harrass or perhaps most had "grown up" and developed some wisdom over the years.
Anyhow, it is VERY embarrasing for the entire nursing profession to have this black cloud hanging over it. I absolutely can not relate to this type of behavior, and have always enjoyed helping and teaching other nurses and learning from other health professionals as well. We all can glean knowledge from other medical professionals who are more experienced thana ourselves.
I think these immature catty behaviors DEFINITELY are doing nothing to advance our profession and have actually held us back for years!
Specializes in med surg, geriatric, clinical, pool.
Im a second year student who is going through this this quarter. Im new to the forum too, so Hi everyone. I am at my 5th clinical site and the first 4 were outstanding with a few nurses who weren't very helpful..... so be it. This quarter though, is a totally different story. Im absolutely amazed at how horrible this whole hospital is to new hires and students. We had an incident yesterday where the RN was with the student and made a mistake, blamed the student and said the student acted alone. It has gotten to the point where we are going to tell our instructor that we refuse to perform procedures/pass meds and we will just shadow the RNs so we can't be thrown under the bus like this.
Another example, I showed up for report and walked up behind the RN I was working with for the day to hear her complaining about how bad she hates working with students. She turned around and I gladly told her I didn't want to be here either, but I will be kicked out of the program for not completing clinical.
I have read posts about "respect issues" which maybe so, but I have never disrespected anybody. Im a military man, and I give respect where it is due. On the other hand, this RN treated me like I was an idiot and I promise you I have more experience than she does. I was a medic in the infantry for 6 years, did one tour in Iraq, worked in Turkey, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic and so on. I am always respectfull, and I kind of expect the same.
I feel that so far I have worked with some great RNs. I have also worked with quite a few that need to retire. Im new to the field and I don't want to hear about how horrible it is and how hard it is. Im excited to be a nurse, I love this. I definetly feel that the RNs that I have worked with that aren't student or new hire friendly really go out of their way to let you know it though.
Some of the best nurses I have ever met and worked with just happen to be LPNs like me.
I was in nursing for my RN until the head nurse decided it was time for me to leave and failed me over .3 of a point! She informed me,"we can't all be astronauts". I don't know who she thought she was, but she was truely a back stabber to me. After that and some other remarks I wrote her ass up. I got the pharmachology test changed. When I took it, it was 50 questions, the next semester it was 25. so I guess I suffered so others would not have to.
If I may add my $.02 as somebody not yet in the profession, I would suggest it's more of a gender issue than a profession issue. For whatever reasons, it seems that females tend to be more competitive towards and threatened by one another in the workplace than men. I have worked in high stress business situations my entire career, and I see it time and time again. I'm not sure what causes it, but I'm not surprised that it is prevalent in a female-dominated profession like Nursing.
Thankfully, I'm coming into the profession as a male, so hopefully nobody will "eat" me.
I served in a male dominated job for 11yrs in the military you haven't seen competitive, mean, and petty until you stand in a room full of men (usually high ranking) trying to **** on each other. I can't tell you how many games of mine is bigger than yours I've witnessed. So I respectfully disagree with your statements.
I am going through something like this right now. senior nursing student, graduating in May 2009 (hopefully) but I tell you the clinical instructors I have had so far haven't been bad at all. This is my semester from hell, I have a totally cold, weird, strange person for clinical she is probably the most self centered, cruelest person I have ever met. If these are the people in nursing I am beginning to wonder what I am doing to myself and why I am putting myself through all of this. It is very discouraging.
It's sad that new nurses or for that matter ANYONE has to put up with this; This is one of the many reason Joint Commission has come out with a new standard that MUST be in effect by January 2009....in various health care organizations. Basically this type of behvavior has been researched and demonstrated to negatively impact patient care and outcomes.
See new Joint Commission Standands on Disruptive behavior or PM me for a copy of an article. nurse430+yrs
i would have to answer "yes" and "no" to the question of nurses eating their young. as a still fairly new nurse, i have had some nurses treat me horribly when i 1st granduated. the thing is i actually had been working with these same nurses for about 8 months prior as a student nurse extern. as soon as i graduated, they changed the way they treated me and other new grads. in fact, i had walked in on a conversation in the breakroom where my so called supportive co-workers were saying "they need to stop hiring these new nurses" as well as other comments. certain seasoned nurses would give the "pain in the you know what" to us new nurses. they would push off their diurty work on us and then say "its good experiance" and laugh!
however, at the same time, their was some wonderful seasoned nurses who would support us professionally in anyway they could. when i walked in i new what kind of night i was going to have depending on the nurses i was working with.
as far as new nurses treating "older" nurses poorly, i see that happen as well. we have a "older" nurse who is not only close to retirement but also a lpn. i have witnessed her be treated with disrespect several times by new, young nurses.
the truth is, i have seen this in other professions, too, just not as much. the one thing with nursing that is different then many other careers is that if someone else is slow, or not yet skilled, then other employees need to pick up the slack whether they want to or not. for example, a new nurse may not have her priortizing down yet and fall behind in administering her meds. this is when the charge nurse and/or other nurses on the floor will need to jump in and help the new nurse get back on track. this can cause some resentment when the nurses helping have a lot to do themselves. just a thought.
well,as a psychiatric RN nurse,i think that these kind of behaviours are due to the person's herself and not to the number of years she has worked during;also,there are many factors which may interfer positivily of negativily between old and young nurses,such as:stress,charge of work,personal's preoccupations...etc;after all we are all human being and we aren't able to incarnate neutrality in 100°/.
I served in a male dominated job for 11yrs in the military you haven't seen competitive, mean, and petty until you stand in a room full of men (usually high ranking) trying to **** on each other. I can't tell you how many games of mine is bigger than yours I've witnessed. So I respectfully disagree with your statements.
i'm sure you are right about the military, and I'm sure that can be said for some industries, however:
obviously, comparing military officers to the female population as a whole is not a valid comparison. military officers, by nature, are competitive. if you compare the general population, male vs. female, studies have shown repeatedly shown that females are more territorial and competitive than men. i come from a sales background, so i've seen this too with men, but even in sales, the females would talk **** on one another when backs were turned and undermine each other.
OBVIOUSLY, there are plenty of exceptions on both sides of the ledger, and I don't mean to offend by speaking in generalities.
nurse430+yrs
SkySoldier
9 Posts
Im a second year student who is going through this this quarter. Im new to the forum too, so Hi everyone. I am at my 5th clinical site and the first 4 were outstanding with a few nurses who weren't very helpful..... so be it. This quarter though, is a totally different story. Im absolutely amazed at how horrible this whole hospital is to new hires and students. We had an incident yesterday where the RN was with the student and made a mistake, blamed the student and said the student acted alone. It has gotten to the point where we are going to tell our instructor that we refuse to perform procedures/pass meds and we will just shadow the RNs so we can't be thrown under the bus like this.
Another example, I showed up for report and walked up behind the RN I was working with for the day to hear her complaining about how bad she hates working with students. She turned around and I gladly told her I didn't want to be here either, but I will be kicked out of the program for not completing clinical.
I have read posts about "respect issues" which maybe so, but I have never disrespected anybody. Im a military man, and I give respect where it is due. On the other hand, this RN treated me like I was an idiot and I promise you I have more experience than she does. I was a medic in the infantry for 6 years, did one tour in Iraq, worked in Turkey, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic and so on. I am always respectfull, and I kind of expect the same.
I feel that so far I have worked with some great RNs. I have also worked with quite a few that need to retire. Im new to the field and I don't want to hear about how horrible it is and how hard it is. Im excited to be a nurse, I love this. I definetly feel that the RNs that I have worked with that aren't student or new hire friendly really go out of their way to let you know it though.