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.
PLEEASE--I must be one of the most fortuneate nurses out there because I work in probably..no not probably--I am a lucky to be part of an intricate...helpful...team oriented..wonderful community at my place of employment. I love the nurses I work with...some 30 year veterans...and some new graduates and we treat eachother with respect and eat everything but our young. I agree with Cat--you hit the nail on the head. In nursing school we are eaten or beaten or in my opinion they should just shave all RN student's heads the way students are treated. But I understand now why Instructors are the way they are. GOOD POINT!!!!! I am always eating walking down the hall because when in the hell can I take a lunch break!!!!!!THERE ARE NO BREAKS IN NURSING!!!!!!!!!!
I would have stayed longer at many jobs if older nurses would have helped me learn significant indicators of lab values, critical IV drips, etc.
For my lack of knowledge and action in some situations they would belittle me and make me feel stupid. I am a good caring nurse who was willing and wanted to learn but could not handle other nurses who wouldn't take the time to help or teach me the things I did not know.
I never have understood this..why would you treat a new employee bad so they would keep leaving and continue the nursing shortage in your facility making for more stressful working conditions.
No offense to the foreign nurses, but for some reason the rudest ones were from overseas. Yes, I know some of you are awesome and really know your stuff, but others seem to act as though they were gods on that nursing floor.
Hmmm...I'm a 44-year-old-graduating-in-two-months ADN student and at my last rotation (on Friday), I had a 20-something CHARGE Nurse throw a big wad of paper at me in report and laugh. The day before a 20-something male RN told me that students from my school need to learn how to "shut their big mouths" this was while I was silently removing my papers so he could sit down (for some reason, where ever I put my papers down, is where he wanted to sit). I don't know if these people are just ignorant or rude or immature or what...but I experience extreme disrespect at a certain hospital we do rotations at (out of two) on a regular basis. These are working nurses at a major hospital that I'm referring to. Funny...this hospital is always trying to recruit nurses from our school...makes you wonder.
Kellerpatty,
Whatever you do, DON'T WORK FOR THESE PEOPLE!
No matter how big the hire-on bonus, how much the loan repayment, how cheap the heaklh insurance, how nice the employee gym or how high the hourly wage, they have not learned the basice tenet of human kindness.
Those two nurses (and others like them) will soon be left to wonder why they must work mandatory overtime, have no new help and hospital managment treats them so poorly and disrespectfully. They get what they deserve and reap what they sow.
I think it's not just new grads that get nailed but it's nursing students during their clinical rotations. Every student in my class has at least one nurse per clinical rotation who treats them like they're nothing but extra nursing assistants, doesn't encouraged them to grow professionally, makes the patients afraid to work with them because they're students (gasp!), or just ignores them all together. I don't know if it's just a personality issue or if that's how they were treated as students so it's what they think is right, but there's still not much of an excuse for it. If you're working in a teaching hospital suck it up! You knew what you were getting yourself into, and these are the people who are not only going to be working with you in the future, they're going to be taking care of you when you get old. So please, even if you're just having a bad day, either say "I just really can't handle a student today" when they ask you to take one, or find a way to be helpful and polite!
I understand that it is the minority of nurses in teaching hospitals that are like this, and I'd just like to give a great big THANK YOU SO MUCH! to all those nurses who make clinical experiences less intimidating and actually worthwhile to nursing students!
I've been treated horribly by younger nurses who scoffed at me for being an older nurse, that my knowledge was "outdated," etc. (It's not; more of a case of "according to my professors," but no practical experience to back up what they were saying.)
There are rude people of all age groups. Please stop demonizing older nurses. Some of you young 'uns aren't exactly the easiest to work with, either.
Specializes in ER/ MEDICAL ICU / CCU/OB-GYN /CORRECTION.
"Do nurses eat thier young --"
From what I have seen more than any other profession medically or otherwise - and they do it in one gobble and then look like the chesire cat with a grin.
I have never seen lawyers / physicians / accountants treat other members of thier profession like we do -- of course they have competition but not to the piont were we bring our own kind. Write ups -- threatening ones economic status -- reports to the BON -- scape goating -- not supporting each other to physicians or administrations -- and various situations often over petty things that from a business professional level would never occur in the real world.
I personally only had it happen to me one time but have seen it over and over again. I am lucky that I am in a position that I do not have to tolerate to work with persons as such but my soul go out to persons who due to situations who are forced to put up with such pathologic and pitiful behaviours.
We can come up with all kinds of psychosocial reasons -- the bottom line is it is pathetic and a large part of the reason that we are not respected, paid what we are worth and often manipulated by other professionals administration and the public. I love nursing but there are parts of it I call what it is -- a profession with a long way to go.
I'm Australian, so my experience is different to that of the States, although by the sound of it not too much different.
For me it's an absolute given that nurses eat their young. The only question for me is why? Why is this horizontal violence so common in nursing and less common in other professions or trades. This situation is often recognised and bemoaned, as this thread shows, but little is done about investigating the underlying issues, and thinking about what we can do about them. At the risk of sounding like an essay, I'm going to try to flesh out a few issues.
When I started nursing, I soon realised that hospitals are very hierarchical places. The chain of command is very clear and seldom questioned - what a specialist doctor says is gospel, and nursing students and nursing graduates are bottom of the pile. There seem to be a couple of different styles of power-structure in play - a military-style clear hierarchy (some hospitals in Australia still use epaulettes to denote nursing rank), with a total resistance to questioning or 'insubordination'; and a family-style paternalism, with the doctor as father, the nurse as mother and the patient as child.
As a nurse claws his or her way up the hierarchy, it's hard to forget the indignities and privations that were forced on you when you started, and the temptation is strong to visit these indignities on those now under your power. If a nurse has an unstable personality this temptation can be overwhelming, and the consequences can be devastating.
Doctors have to endure the same hierarchical forces, but the pay-offs are much better for smiling and toeing the line. Their career structure is infinitely more lucrative than ours, in terms of money and power. Even when nurses do get to a position of authority over a few hundred nurses, their authority is usually pretty tenuous. From my experience (as a worker on the floor, not as a manager) it seems that everyone questions what a nursing manager has to say, even when he or she is doing a good job. Maybe this has something to do with nursing as the caring profession - it is seen as presumptuous of a nurse to consider themselves worthy of being in a position of authority; that's what doctors are for.
Young nurses suffer under an overbearing hierarchy, but nursing management is not respected by those under its sway. Surely a poisonous situation. From my experience, there is a ruthless pragmatism about getting off the clinical floor. Often times nurses seek promotion just so they can be on the right side of the hierarchy and wield a bit of that power they've been subject to, not because they want to provide a better service to clients.
At the risk of losing any women still reading this, and in Australia that's still over 90% of nurses, there can be a peculiar dynamic when a lot of women are working together. I've worked in male-dominated industries before, and while there can be a lot of aggro and posturing among men, there is usually a realisation that the main thing is to do the job - fights, physical or otherwise, are short and sharp, and don't usually linger. In female-dominated industries like nursing, and especially in highly female-dominated workplaces like midwifery wards, the atmosphere can be truly vicious. Real or imagined personal slights fester, relationships are destroyed, communication in the workplace suffers. I don't see this as the fault of any women in particular, but I think it is a clear enough problem that should be addressed. A good start is to encourage more men into nursing.
Whether an unquestioning hierarchy is justified or not - lives are at risk here after all - for me there's no question the environment can be pathological. Threads like this one are a good start, but we as nurses really need to address these problems. We need to develop a better awareness of ourselves as a profession, and a better cohesiveness. How often do you hear doctors bitching about other doctors? Not very often in my experience, even if the other doctor deserves to be bitched about. How often do you hear nurses bitching about other nurses? All the time, day in day out. This sort of internal fractiousness will just make others think well, why should I respect these people if they can't respect each other? Why should they be paid more, have more power and influence in their workplace? If they can't even get on with each other.
I hope this doesn't sound like a diatribe. With enough awareness of the underlying issues here, I think there can be a slow cultural change.
As a nursing instructor, I deal with this reality every day in the hospital. Just yesterday, a nurse snarled at the student assigned to her for a job shadow (who was allowed to help with treatments and tasks) that "I am not your teacher" and "No", flatly NO, and NO to the students request to do GT feeds and vitals for her. Further snarling revealed her core belief she doesn't get paid enough to do another job, and didn't have time in her overloaded work day to waste it teaching a student anything. My students are days away from graduating, are basically capable, and have said again and again in conference they wouldn't even consider applying for a job there. And unfortunately, one vicious nurse cancels out too much of the kindness and mentoring of other nurses. Needless to say, my students aren't being assigned there again. And the reason we don't have an instructor on that unit is she resigned in March and we can't hire anyone to replace her. Reality check: Perdiem LPNs in the neighboring nursing home are paid 22cents more per hour than I make, and my prep time and homework time is unpaid time. I have only accepted that reality because teaching is where my heart is. (And I am not doing it next year) We have divided her workload up between us, but 11 students per instructor is almost impossible. Our students are much needier these days, (many work full time, are single parents at the poverty level, are exhausted from trying to survive, much less do well in class) and many are struggling with basic critical thinking.... which we are struggling desperately to teach). Because of our hospitals near critical nurse shortage, even nurses who truly mentor and include our students in their workday are overworked, overstressed, overtired (i.e. 3 double shifts in one week, pray that NY's legistlation prohibiting mandatory overtime passes....) and scared to death of making a med error on the run, missing an important assessment, overlooking a snuck in order while the ward secretary was on lunch........(what's a lunch break?), and since it does take time to explain, or demonstrate, or show how something works, or where to find something...... or even wait for a student to literally catch up with the nurse who is already half way down the hall and doing two things at once....... did I mention I was really discouraged this year? And tired. Like every nurse I know.
Totally correct Leighann!!! Nurses eat their young and each other. Nurses are supposed to be compassionate and understanding (HA!) Yet they exhibit bold intolerance to anyone unlike themselves. If you don't know as much as them (even if your a new grad) look out-they're going to rip you a new one! If you differ in sexual orientation, religion, personal beliefs-look out again. I worked for years as a social worker and out reach program manager for street people, natives, HIV pts, gay youth. I believe in live and let live. Started nursing 3 years ago and was shocked beyond belief at the level of intolerance and narrow mindedness I saw in the nursing profession (not all-but many) Im a vegetarian-work in a rural setting now and stated my beliefs when asked to bring a meat dish to a function-look out. Everyone here raises (and eats) cattle (it was actually kind of funny)-if looks could kill. When ever slanderous comments are made about the native population here (and there have been many from mgmt on down) I correct them and try to open their minds to something other than their stereotypes. Lost cause!!!!! I'm just glad I'm not a lesbian, native with HIV looking for treatment up here. I mean when RNS gown, glove and mask (with eye wear) to do vitals on an HIV positive pt , you have to wonder. The nurses up here appear to be intelligent until they open their mouths. We've lost over 80% of our new staff in the last 1.5 years because they've been "eaten" LOL (wonder where they spit out the bones) Im a feminist and hate derogatory statements towards women but I have to say on this one IF THE SHOE FITS-WEAR IT!!!!!!!!!!
LittleWeasle44
14 Posts
PLEEASE--I must be one of the most fortuneate nurses out there because I work in probably..no not probably--I am a lucky to be part of an intricate...helpful...team oriented..wonderful community at my place of employment. I love the nurses I work with...some 30 year veterans...and some new graduates and we treat eachother with respect and eat everything but our young. I agree with Cat--you hit the nail on the head. In nursing school we are eaten or beaten or in my opinion they should just shave all RN student's heads the way students are treated. But I understand now why Instructors are the way they are. GOOD POINT!!!!! I am always eating walking down the hall because when in the hell can I take a lunch break!!!!!!THERE ARE NO BREAKS IN NURSING!!!!!!!!!!