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.
I recently had a director who managed by way of intimidation. She was absolutely awful, a true bully. I hung in there for more than a year and finally succumbed to the constant harrassment and hostile work environment she worked so hard to maintain.
Now, 4 months later, I still feel professionally paralyzed and keep putting off finding a new job. And believe me when I tell you, I'm no wallflower ~ I survived being an only child of an alcoholic single parent, I served my country for 6 years, of which the last two were during Desert Storm, I've had the horror of losing two children due to genetic anomalies and let me tell you, the list goes on, but this is not the point of this post.
The point is, we have the ability to truly embrace our new collegues just as we have the ability to completely mess up their outlook on the profession as a whole. My case in point, not just the newbie, but the fairly well seasoned nurses like myself.
I think the question "Do Nurses Eat their Young?" will only go away when we embrace the new grad/student and make them feel welcome and take time to teach. I admit 10 years ago, as a nurse for about 10 years at the time, I was occasionally impatient with students and new grads. We get so busy and so focused on our own work we don't find ways to include them. I got over that real fast as I knew if I wanted to work side by side with a competent nurse, I needed to help. Now I am part-time Nursing Clinical Instructor and love it but I do see the negativity from some nurses when a student arrives. Thank goodness for those wonderfully patient nurses who welcome and teach our future nurses!:wink2:
After finishing up with medicine and surgery rotations (3rd year), I can honestly say that nurses are capable of cannabalism towards the young and truly defenseless students.
Backstabbing, cutthroat, selfish, ego stroking, petty, bullying, belittling, and berating behaviour is found in most professions? True. However, as a once outisder looking in, I would expect nursing to have this at a minumum. Nurses are so busy caring for their patients, you would think that this behaviour would permeate into their personalities, right? Wrong.
Nurses are human beings, just like lawyers, athletes, business types, and harvard medical students. If you want to make partner, get a contract, be recognized for brilliance, you delve into above stated behaviours to earn a reward. It's a merit based system (in theory, just not always ethicallly) granting recognition for "X" criteria. Here's the disturbing part: nurses are unionized (mostly). Our pay raises are increased based on a negotiated contract. So what incentive is there to behave so negatively towards each other? If they aren't doing it for the money...
The education staff especially have been unsupportive and dismissive of student concerns that may tarnish the reputation of the faculty and the questionable clinical instructors they hire. Our medicine prof is a certifiable nightmare. She takes every opportunity to make students feel like idiots when they can't give an answer to her liking. You could answer edema, but made to look ridiculous because you didn't say decreased serum albumin. By the middle of the course no one bothers to raise their hand to answer a question. The prof was telling how she got into an accident, but that she was ok. My first comment whispered was, "what, did they miss?" You should have seen all the smirks and looks of "disappointment" after she said that to us. The person above us said, "heh, failed assasination attempt?"
Nurses want to address the shortage? Quit treating students like whipping boys/girls for your sadism and ego stroking. I've already had to drop one clinical course, get 1/2 a letter grade knocked off my medicine clinical, and had 6 months added to my nursing program because of cutthroat, vindictive, and superiority driven complex nurses. It did not help that one of my profs is a 39 year old, single, overweight, 5/10, male hating bag of misery, either.
If I am going to willingly subject myself to the inevitable negativities involved in a profession, there are better (paying) ways to do it. I love the work of nursing, however, I cannot stand some of the people I work with and have to take orders from.
Me being the son of NRSKarenRN I would have to say yes yes nurses eat there young the also grind in as much nursing knowledge as humanly possible into them. This is all for the best though because the more you know about how the human body works the better you can take care of yourself. All and all i say its a good thing and in truth I don't think enough schools teach kids about how the human body works and how to fix it.
I'm a student on a med surg unit and loving it! One thing I did when I arrived on the unit was to assess the nurses. Just by observing, I knew in one evening which nurses I could approach for Q's/advice, and which one's well . . . do that "thing" to their young. Three weeks into my rotation I was assigned to a cannabulistic nurse. She is a good nurse. Very competent, thorough, efficient . . but has decided teaching is not part of her "job". She refused to include me in on report. So, I got it off the computer. I informed my clinical instructor, who's wonderful - a true teacher - of my RN's "attitude", but I quickly added, "I'm determined to make it a good evening anyways!". My CI said, "Great! Go for it!" I avoided my RN for the rest of the evening. If I had Q's, I went to the nurses who were receptive. My patient suffered a med reaction, and I could see she was going down quick. My CI wasn't around, so I reported the situation to my "attitudie" RN. She just continued looking at the computer screen, and said, "Yup" in a monotone. I went to a friendly nurse, described the situation quickly, and told me what I needed to do. I went back to the patient's room, did everything the "friendly, helpful" nurse said to do, and when everything went crazy on the patient 5 minutes later, and the "attitudie" and my CI came flying in the room there I was all calm, helping this very old woman through a very tough time, with her son assisting. I wasn't going to let this nurse "ruin" my psychy for the night. I worked around her. I even found her "brain" - patient sheet - lying on a COW (computer on wheels) in the hallway, with patient information up on the screen unattended. I kept an eye on her "brain "for about 30 minutes, (I did shut down the program after 2 minutes) then noticed her down at the other end of the unit charting. Appeared she was avoiding me too. Good! Two can play at this game! I picked up her brain and pen, and walked it down the unit to her. "Excuse me", I said as nicely as I could. She continued to look at the screen. "What", she answered tersely. "I think this belongs to you. It has been sitting on a COW down the other end of the hallway for the past 45 minutes." She looked down at the papers, and a look of relief swept over her face. "Thanks", she whispered, and continued charting. It went on like this all evening. I am determined to be a competent nurse, and as I struggle to become one, I have decided that I will not let these unproductive turkey attitudes get me down, and I will not let client care suffer because of nurses with these type of attitudes. I will not let them determine my future. My own choices will determine my future. I went back at the end of the evening, and made sure I profusely thanked those who helped get me through the evening. I've applied for a nurse extern summer program on that same floor. I would, in a heart-beat, come to the aid of those nurses who have been helpful.
It is a truism that some nurses do eat their young. Accepting that as fact helped me to learn to navigate among and between them more efficiently and effectively. When I expected them to all be welcoming and helpful, that's when I begin to flounder emotionally, in my psychie and ultimately in my client care, because first of all, I was choosng to believe a lie.
The real question to myself is then, if the statement "SNETY" is true , how am I going to chose to respond without:
it effecting my phychie, (my realistic evaluation of my skills and abilities, as opposed to adopting the negative view of some cannabolistic nurse)
it effecting me emotionally? (find a way/method to work around this attitude (person) while I still strive to learn and grow)
allowing it to effect client care? (because if you flounder here some big bad legal issues may arise, not to mention needless patient suffering)
Additionally, the expected response, when one senses they are about to "get devoured" it to get protective. Protect your honest assessment of your skills and abilities; Protect your emotional stability; and protect your patients, above all else. They deserve the best in quality care.
Learning to navigate around nurses with "-tudes" is an acquired skill. There are some good books out there, not necessarily nursing-related either, because it's about developing people skills. (The movie, "Mean Girls" comes to mind).
I want to give a big brava to the both of you, as you seem to be very strong individuals; a trait much needed in our chosen profession.
SN2b, you allowed me reminesce to my nursing school days; your "male hating bag of misery" made me howl!! There's always one prof like this in nsg school.
If I may, a brief synopsis ~ I was one of a group of four very close knit students. We laughed our way through school, hard to say how we absorbed anything except for the fact we always sat in the front row (laughing at our profs and having ring side seats took cahones, no?).
We had this one prof, picture this, bleach blond, pale, divorcee, smoker, underweight who had a love of above-the-knee skirts, dark hose (not stylish bohemian tights, but cheap drugstore suntan panty hose), and one gaudy gold-tone ankle bracelet.
The morning after pulling one of many all-nighters, we were all ehxausted to say the least, which was very dangerous for those in the line of our fire. As usual, we commented on her attire among ourselves, taking note that her ankle bracelet was caught between her hose and skin giving the appearance of it riding half-way up her calf. This promtly set us into a fit of the giggles. Then it was time for break.
We returned to the classroom before our prof, and when she walked in, my friend leaned into me and whispered that he swore he saw the bracelet on the other leg, so it had to have made a journey up one leg and down the other during the short break. It was at this point when I completely lost it; silently laughing so hard tears were running down my cheeks and I think I even had a little booger bubble make an appearance out of one nares. I spent the rest of the classroom time looking strait down into my text, not daring to make any sort of eye contact with the prof.
OK, not so brief of a synopsis, but I just had to share with all. The real point is to keep having fun. Once you stop having fun at work, it's time to move on ~ believe me. Nursing is such a rewarding profession, and yes, their always will be the sticks in the mud, but mostly, our fellow nurses are kind, helpful and just plain fun people to work with.
And SN2bExpAt, keep your eyes open with this nurse. She clearly violated HIPPA regs by leaving the COW screen open to pt info and leaving her brain around for others to see. Now, losing the brain happens to all of us, but keeping the screen up was just negligent. The next time this happens, give the brain to the charge nurse or your instructor so they may return it to her. I think you did the right thing by giving it to her directly and telling her about the COW and correcting it yourself, but there may be something deeper with this nurse, and it will have to be addressed on a higher level.
I am starting nursing school in the fall and about 5 years ago I would have been scared to death. All the scary intimidating nurses will eat me alive! But now I know that not everything is about me. If a nurse is short with me, mean, or scary - it's probably because she/he is overworked, tired, stressed, and I'm a naive student running behind asking questions. I would be annoyed too. And there is always those few students that show up to clinicals completely unprepared, have no idea what's going on, don't study, and expect everyone else to pick up there slack. (not me) When I did clinicals for my cna license I wanted to scream at some of the students. Are you kidding me? Have you been paying any attention in class? I hate slackers and one day I suspect I will be "eating my youngins":p Hee hee
"Are you kidding me? Have you been paying any attention in class?"
Congratulations on starting Nursing School in the fall. I also have my CNA (call it LNA license where I'm at), and did homecare for two years while I went to college to get my other nursing pre-req's out of the way. I earned straight A's in all of my classes (Micro/ A&P I & II, etc). I earned a B in my first semester of Nursing I. In Nursing II, I presently have an 88 average, and spend hours preparing for clinical. All of my pre-plans are typed, and all of my final paperwork is all typed (Includes med sheets, labs, pre-plan sheets, 2 full careplans w/ at least 2 outcomes each). In addition, I'm vice-president of my schools National Student Nurses Association, which brings additional responsibilties I've chosen to take on, over and above my usual coursework. If that wasn't enough, I'm also taking Prob & Statistics (4 credits) on-line, a pre-requisite to transfer to a BSN program after I graduate from the ADN program I'm presently enrolled in. All of this, with a husband battling terminal cancer at home, driving himself to chemo treatments himself because I'm in class, or clinical on the days he's slated to go. Nope, checked. No slacker's here either.
"Are you kidding me? Have you been paying any attention in class?"
Congratulations on starting Nursing School in the fall. I also have my CNA (call it LNA license where I'm at), and did homecare for two years while I went to college to get my other nursing pre-req's out of the way. I earned straight A's in all of my classes (Micro/ A&P I & II, etc). I earned a B in my first semester of Nursing I. In Nursing II, I presently have an 88 average, and spend hours preparing for clinical. All of my pre-plans are typed, and all of my final paperwork is all typed (Includes med sheets, labs, pre-plan sheets, 2 full careplans w/ at least 2 outcomes each). In addition, I'm vice-president of my schools National Student Nurses Association, which brings additional responsibilties I've chosen to take on, over and above my usual coursework. If that wasn't enough, I'm also taking Prob & Statistics (4 credits) on-line, a pre-requisite to transfer to a BSN program after I graduate from the ADN program I'm presently enrolled in. All of this, with a husband battling terminal cancer at home, driving himself to chemo treatments himself because I'm in class, or clinical on the days he's slated to go. Nope, checked. No slacker's here either.
You are an example to those who "just don't have the time to study" You will be a wonderful nurse! Good luck and I'll say a prayer for your husband and family.
Specializes in ICU. Med/Surg: Ortho, Neuro, & Cardiac.
A bit off track, but the complaint of "eating their young" isn't exclusive to nurses.
I've seen a lot of aides bite a newbies head off when they ask for help with something they "can do by themselves." When I started as a CNA, I wasn't bothered by it. I floated my second night as a CNA in Med/Surg (also my second night working as a CNA) to have a busy med/surg floor to my lonesome. I took 15 patients the first night even though I was just supposed to "follow my trainer around." Of course, I went to her if I needed help.
ANYWHO, we've had three night CNAs come and go because they are floated two or three nights in a row after being there for 3-4 weeks before getting floated. They just quit because they don't think its fair. How crazy.
But now I know that not everything is about me. If a nurse is short with me, mean, or scary - it's probably because she/he is overworked, tired, stressed, and I'm a naive student running behind asking questions. I would be annoyed too. And there is always those few students that show up to clinicals completely unprepared, have no idea what's going on, don't study, and expect everyone else to pick up there slack. (not me) When I did clinicals for my cna license I wanted to scream at some of the students. Are you kidding me? Have you been paying any attention in class? I hate slackers and one day I suspect I will be "eating my youngins":p Hee hee
mariedoreen
819 Posts
Everytime I open this page I see this question: Do Nurses Eat Their Young???
Perhaps that's why it never dies.
However, every time I open this page and see this question there's a wounded voice inside of me that screams to the high heavens...
YEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSS!