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.
... "Nurses eat their young" but they also sometimes "Eat each other":rolleyes:
Not to mention any other specialty that comes to the floor! After a 2 week vacation it seems even worse than ever. I am thinking about changing jobs just to be on the outside for another 6 months before it starts in again.
I think some nurses are just mean, take out a bad day on others, and plain out don't know themselves well enough to understand how they come acorss...regardless if your are young, old, exprierenced, male, female, human, etc.
ABSOULUTELY NURSES EAT THEIR YOUNG! Although not all nurses eat their young, I have personally seen senior staff nurses belittle, speak in a condensending tone and even make some new/ young nurses cry! Common sense to anyone would say "I was once where you are when starting any new career." I am not sure where some nurses loose their compassion towards new nurses but I would like to know if they are even aware of it? Words of encouragement, stay strong and seek out nurses who are willing to show/ teach and extend themselves to you, most importantly never forget how your feeling now for someday you will be a "senior" nurse encountering "new/young" nurses. I personally don't subscribe to the theory of nurses eat their young...you never know they can some day take care of me or my family:bowingpur
Nursing is a tough profession. I think some do "eat their young" but I think they "Feast" on each other. Nursing requires extreme dedication and sweat. I have done this for over 30 years and it still gets under my skin when I see nurses more concerned about gossip than their patients. Some can never be quiet and constanly have a flow of verbal diarrhea. I feel like saying "yes I am happy about your daughters marriage but I am sure this pt. here who just is coming out of surgery does not give a hoot." If they insist on talking why can't they whisper or talk in a low voice. I resent the fact that my pt. has to hear the all details of their life. ie:money issues, love issues, child issuses etc. It reflects badly on the unit, hospital and nursing.
So to all the new nurses out there don't worry it's not just you. Would I pIck this career all over again? I really don't know. Although I enjoy my job I don't think Nusring is a healthy career choice. It is physically exhausting, even more mentally exhusting, little control over your work enviroment, majority have poor pensions plans and little respect from the administration. Thank goodness I have only had to do this part time because I get a good break on my days off.
Good luck to all you new ones. Stay in school and get the education so that when you are fed up with the politics you can move into a job that will less stress.:smiley_ab
Here's a hint to all veteran nurses: When new student nurses or newly hired orientees come into the nursing station for the first time -- introduce yourselves. Try to get to know that new student in some way. Be genuine, not jaded. Show them around a bit -- ask them a few questions about themselves. These are people of VALUE to your organization. Maybe not now, maybe not even in a year -- but in a few years, THEY will be the mainstay of your hospital IF you can make this a good initial experience for them. These are also PEOPLE with lives, just not "new grads" for you to munch on.
My experience was that i walked into the unit and no one said a word. Most looked at me for a brief second, then went on talking amongst themselves as if I wasn't there. Some just merely stared - and I mean OGLED me for minutes at a time, not saying a word.
I'll never forget it. It was awkward as hell for me and just started me off feeling weird and unaccepted. This happened to me on two different units. I am a person with two college degrees, a family, and a great former career. Not too many have really taken the time ever since to truly get to know me -- it's just surface stuff. They seem just too comfortable in their own cliques to accept me into them.
So, I just keep my head down and follow around my nurse of the day like a little duckling and learn what I can. It's not fun -- mostly uncomfortable and stressful. I've had to find a place where no one could see my tears a few times.
Just remember, I might be that new grad in your floor who is having a bad time. Maybe you could find it within yourself to smile at me, to offer a kind and friendly word occasionally? To treat me like one of you? To compliment me in some way? Try it and maybe you will discover a great co-worker amongst us -- make us feel accepted and maybe we'll stick around and do a great job on your unit, relieving YOUR burden a bit.
YES! We left a clinical setting mid-semester because the nurses were extremely arrogant and unwilling to show anything. By the way I am 50 and have worked in another professional career and was appalled, and let the nurses know it. I have worked in the ER as a tech, during my let me see if this is what I want to do phase, so clinical setting was not new. Trust me, when I finish I (while I don't tolerate incompetence) I will bend over backward to teach and encourage. You were there once too, and remember that student could be your nurse when you become a patient.
Here's a hint to all veteran nurses: When new student nurses or newly hired orientees come into the nursing station for the first time -- introduce yourselves. Try to get to know that new student in some way. Be genuine, not jaded. Show them around a bit -- ask them a few questions about themselves. These are people of VALUE to your organization. Maybe not now, maybe not even in a year -- but in a few years, THEY will be the mainstay of your hospital IF you can make this a good initial experience for them. These are also PEOPLE with lives, just not "new grads" for you to munch on.
My experience was that i walked into the unit and no one said a word. Most looked at me for a brief second, then went on talking amongst themselves as if I wasn't there. Some just merely stared - and I mean OGLED me for minutes at a time, not saying a word.
I'll never forget it. It was awkward as hell for me and just started me off feeling weird and unaccepted. This happened to me on two different units. I am a person with two college degrees, a family, and a great former career. Not too many have really taken the time ever since to truly get to know me -- it's just surface stuff. They seem just too comfortable in their own cliques to accept me into them.
So, I just keep my head down and follow around my nurse of the day like a little duckling and learn what I can. It's not fun -- mostly uncomfortable and stressful. I've had to find a place where no one could see my tears a few times.
Just remember, I might be that new grad in your floor who is having a bad time. Maybe you could find it within yourself to smile at me, to offer a kind and friendly word occasionally? To treat me like one of you? To compliment me in some way? Try it and maybe you will discover a great co-worker amongst us -- make us feel accepted and maybe we'll stick around and do a great job on your unit, relieving YOUR burden a bit.
Good post. In this day and age students should be thought of as future employees/peers and having nursing students on the unit is a valuable recruiting tool. How they are treated initially is a lasting impression. I'm proud that students like coming to my unit, and we recuit many a student from their clinical experience. I got a nice thank you card from a student that I wasn't even precepting this past week.
You're walking onto a unit with dynamics already set in stone. After you come through, we're going to still be there, and the relationships we nuture needs to be with each other for the most part.
It's a two-way street. Many time students come in and become flies on the wall saying nothing to us, as if they are customers waiting to be waited on....then wonder why they are being stared at....we're like wondering "is she going to say something or just stand there?". :)
But more often they come in groups, sticking among themselves, not bothering to introduce themselves, say hello, or even bother to colloborate with us that they will be providing some care for our patients, pick and choose what they will and will not do, whispering among themselves "can you believe what that nurse just did.......".
Sigh....so while students are judging us as being arrogant and unfriendly, they don't stop to take another picture and realize they are in the picture as well.
I don't know about everyone eles but I think its true, about some people. I am a new nurse I have worked at the hospital in my small hometown since I finished school. I have come across some people who love to help and teach me things I have not yet learned (Have I mentioned I have be an LVN for 9 months) and I have some who roll their eyes or laugh. Have you ever come around a corner and heard someone talking about you? I have come home in tears many times. It really sucks. I'm not the type of person who thinks they know everything becouse I don't. I more then likely ask too many questions. But when these are the kind of people you work with is it any wonder why I or anyone eles treated this way would already be looking for a new job in less than a year? So the moral of the story is yes SOME nureses really do eat their young.
Specializes in telemetry, med-surg, home health, psych.
i DON'T AGREE WITH THAT SAYING....when I started out some 20 + years ago, I learned more from the nurses on the floor than I ever did in school.
Some took time with me and were very patient. Of course there was always one ole grouch, but that is everywhere in every job.
Now that I am older I notice that when a newbie comes to the hospital where I work I do my best to "take her under my wing" and help her in any way that I can. Was that Ericksons stages ???? We get a little older and want to teach the younger generation ???? It sure seems to be true in my case. :redbeathe:redbeathe:redbeathe I enjoy sharing my knowledge with those just coming in to nursing....I know they appreciate it and I feel good about it, too !!
I have to say that after 29 years in the ER, and though I hate to admit it, we do set our young nurses up for failure. I have been a mentor and a preceptor of young and " old" nurses alike, and I think that it's generally an initiation instead of an orientation when the new people arrive on our unit. I recently switched jobs and have been told that I am " slow" that was on my 7th day at my new job. I was also left alone the second week and expected to " do my share" without a clue as to what I was doing. I have asked other nurses questions and I get a look or a shoulder shrug and still no answer.
Luckily it's an area where I know that I won't kill a patient, but the paper work is greek to me.
The question in my heart is why in the heck do we do this? Is it that we are so burnt out from being so overworked that we just don't have the energy to look after new nurses who come to our units? I feel very privileged to have been chosen by several new grads to be their mentor. I think that speaks highly of how I treat others. I can tell you that not everyone treats new people like this.
In my new position after 2 weeks there I am miserable. I talked with the nurse manager last week who acted completely shocked at the negativity and the gossip that was thrown my way the first three days there. I was flat out told that it was a miserable place to work, that management was horrible... on and on and on... very discouraging.
Luckily I am prn and a part timer there and I still maintain a position in the ER. I feel at this point that I need something slower and less physical. I am entering my 50's .. even though I don't look it.. and my back is starting to speak to me. The new position is easy.. but the people have been horrible....
I love patient contact.. I am a great nurse..
have thought about home health.. but not sure which way to go...
so to answer the original question.. yes nurses eat their NEW.. not necessarily their young.
i always try to tell myself experience really doesn't gaurantee me anything. you are always one second away from disaster. if could be a med error, a missed assessment, something you said to a family/patient/coworker, someone aspirating a med, a fall during a transfer. anything can happen at any time.
imagine that you're new to nursing. the new have to run the qauntlet. it is a form of a professional survival test. if you are unsuited to do this job, it will be so miserable you'll have to quit.
i know there are times when i needed a resource nurse and some nurses are nice about it, others nasty. i'd like the newbies to remember me as a nice guy who was there to help. otherwise, wouldn't this be a miserable job?
bless the new folks, and it is incumbent on all of us to help them develop their best practice and learn to carry the workload. i am always pleasantly direct with them if there are any quality or performance issues. we all had to learn somewhere.
:banghead:
:redbeathe:redbeathe:redbeathe I enjoy sharing my knowledge with those just coming in to nursing....I know they appreciate it and I feel good about it, too !!
rddsnurse
29 Posts
Not to mention any other specialty that comes to the floor! After a 2 week vacation it seems even worse than ever. I am thinking about changing jobs just to be on the outside for another 6 months before it starts in again.