A little background about me to start--I'm a new nurse (2 years of experience), and I've been in EMS for 6 years. My first job as a nurse was at a smaller community ER, and I was so lucky to have nothing but wonderful, supportive, loving coworkers. They truly became a second family to me. Recently, I uprooted my whole life, moved out of state, and started working in a Level I Trauma Center.
I like the work that I do. I love emergency medicine, and taking care of people during their worst days. It's so satisfying to be able to do something to make somebody feel better. I like meeting people from all walks of life. I'm just not too crazy about the people I'm doing this with. Considering how wonderful my first experience was, this is kind of jarring.
Some things are petty: like nurses inviting everybody around me to go out after work, except for me, and then talking about what a great time it is. If someone is showing a funny picture or meme to the coworkers next to me, and I lean in to see it, someone says, "No, this isn't really for you."
Some things are more upsetting. The other day, when I was crouched in the hallway, attempting to start an IV on a patient in a hallway bed, a coworker leaned over my shoulder, literally breathed down my neck and said, "Oh my God, really? You can't hit that?" A short while later, when I was giving report to the nurse taking over my assignment, that coworker stood in front of me and stared. I asked if I could help him, and he said, "No, I'm just still trying to figure out how you couldn't hit that vein." There were a few nurses who have walked up to me out of the clear blue sky and said, "What? Do you have something to say?" It was getting to the point that I asked my preceptor if I had made somebody angry or something. He said he hadn't heard anything.
What really scares me is that this travel nurse that many of the "in-crowd" disliked had a hallway patient start to really decline, and the patient needed to be moved into a room for more aggressive interventions. People helped her physically move the stretcher into a room, and then they left her to perform/facilitate these interventions by herself. They just went back to the nurses' station. I'm terrified that the other nurses don't like me--and as a result, I won't get help when I need it.
Just reaching out to see if other new nurses have had similar experiences, and what they've done about it. Thanks!
