Experienced Nurses Only

Nurses General Nursing

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No replies from students please!

Nurses, are you frustrated with trying to read theses forums only to find that most of the posts are from students or nurse wanna-be's looking for medical advice? You can usually tell them by the poor grammer.

Can we have a forum created for experienced nurses only to post?

No flames, let's just be honest here.

Specializes in ICU, ER, HH, NICU, now FNP.
Is it that nurses eat their young, or is it that the young think all the experienced nurses are burnt out and should be placed in a retirement home? I don't mind at all when students ask questions and want to learn, but I do have a problem with a student telling me "How can you think that way? What kind of nurse are you??" when I vent about wanting to drop kick an annoying gomer over the highest cliff because of their attitude.

Thank you for that. I admit I refrain from even commenting in many threads because of exactly that. It seems there is always a peanut gallery of those who have never even been there telling you how you SHOULD feel.

It isn't just students - for instance, I have never worked in the OR. It would not behoove me (or the party I'm tellin) to tell an OR nurse how they should FEEL about anything. I might be able to say from my own experience what I would have done or might do, but I can't tell them how they should feel. Nor should I accost them for their own feelings.

People are human. You might be able to set an example as to how to behave, but you can't tell them how they OUGHT to feel. How I FEEL about something is mine. I own it. People chopping each other about their feelings is where things start to get miserable and personal. It makes people feel attacked and it leads to nothing constructive.

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Current irritation about this forum is that nursing students are posting request for information to help with their care plans/projects on this forum. What happened to the day when you had to do your own research for nursing papers? Now its copy/paste off the internet.

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Specializes in Utilization Management.
Current irritation about this forum is that nursing students are posting request for information to help with their care plans/projects on this forum. What happened to the day when you had to do your own research for nursing papers? Now its copy/paste off the internet.

Don't wanna stray too far OT here, but this is a very unfair and untrue statement to students. There is such a wealth of information on the Internet that it's possible to do much more research nowadays. No student can simply "cut and paste" -- each must read, edit, cite, and review the material.

Ergo, it's a lot of work. Or in other words, independent study. :nurse:

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Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.

Can't we all just get along?

I wonder sometimes what people who visit allnurses every now and then, without becoming members themselves, must think about us when we can't even agree on what constitutes a "nurse"!:nono: There is nothing wrong with lively debate, nothing wrong even with disagreement; but there is something VERY wrong with attempting to exclude certain groups from our discussions.

This isn't a playground, where the bullies and the popular kids rule; it is a place for nurses and nurses-yet-to-be (I like that description, BTW) to "talk" and decompress and learn new things. I'm one of those whose families and friends are all non-medical people---I love them dearly, but they don't get the poop jokes, and they have NO clue what it's like to perform chest compressions on a frail 99-year-old, or watch the life drain from a young father of two who's just had his first, last, and only symptom of heart disease, a massive MI.

If it weren't for allnurses, I think I'd have lost my marbles years ago..........I 'lurked' here for years before finally becoming a member in 2002, and even then it was a very useful and informative site. If I'd felt then that it was 'exclusive' in some way, or if I'd felt unwelcome in certain groups, I probably never would have joined...........who needs yet another place in life where you don't feel you belong?

This is why I am very much against excluding students of any stage in the process from any of the general membership forums, or setting aside a forum where they aren't welcome to participate. Now, more than ever, is when we need not only to welcome them, but EMBRACE them, as these are the people who will be taking care of US one day! Granted, it would not be out of line to expect some courtesy and respect for our position---while we have been students, students have never been nurses, and cannot possibly know yet what we 'experienced' nurses know.

But respect goes both ways..........and it is time for nurses of all ages and experience levels to acknowledge what each one of us brings to the profession, instead of worrying about what someone may be trying to take away from us. We are all adults here. Let us act that way, and help our future nurses grow!

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Specializes in Day Surgery/Infusion/ED.
The grammAr that comes to mind when reading this entry is

"Nurses eat their young"

It's sad really. Especially since one of our fields biggest compliant is NEVER enough staff!

I say stop chomping and start encouraging. You just might be surprised at what a student or new grad could teach you.

And I say stop using hurtful stereotypes. You have heard of a self-fulfilling prophesy, right? If you have the attitude that experienced nurses are out there just waiting to devour you, you will almost assuredly set the stage for bad feelings.

To me, this is one of the biggest problems for those of us with experience, and at least for me, why it would be nice to have one forum where those of us with experience could communicate without having the "Nurses eat their young" being thrown in our faces. How disrespectful and hurtful that is.

Plenty of new nurses/students are quite capable of being hurtful toward other nurses, having little regard for their experience or knowledge. I can't tell you how many times I've encountered blatant disrespect, bored sighs, eyeball rolling, "I don't want to do that, I'm already signed off on that," or, my personal favorite, the "Let's flirt with the cute med students" game. Are all students like that? No. But there certainly are some bad ones out there, something that seems to get forgotten by all of the self-righteous admonishing from students.

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Specializes in Day Surgery/Infusion/ED.
Current irritation about this forum is that nursing students are posting request for information to help with their care plans/projects on this forum. What happened to the day when you had to do your own research for nursing papers? Now its copy/paste off the internet.

Seriously. That bugs the heck out of me. For heaven's sake, how hard is it to use a search engine? The information is right out there for the taking; must it also be spoonfed, too?

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Specializes in Day Surgery/Infusion/ED.

deleted double post

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Specializes in Day Surgery/Infusion/ED.
Can't we all just get along?

I wonder sometimes what people who visit allnurses every now and then, without becoming members themselves, must think about us when we can't even agree on what constitutes a "nurse"!:nono: There is nothing wrong with lively debate, nothing wrong even with disagreement; but there is something VERY wrong with attempting to exclude certain groups from our discussions.

This isn't a playground, where the bullies and the popular kids rule; it is a place for nurses and nurses-yet-to-be (I like that description, BTW) to "talk" and decompress and learn new things. I'm one of those whose families and friends are all non-medical people---I love them dearly, but they don't get the poop jokes, and they have NO clue what it's like to perform chest compressions on a frail 99-year-old, or watch the life drain from a young father of two who's just had his first, last, and only symptom of heart disease, a massive MI.

If it weren't for allnurses, I think I'd have lost my marbles years ago..........I 'lurked' here for years before finally becoming a member in 2002, and even then it was a very useful and informative site. If I'd felt then that it was 'exclusive' in some way, or if I'd felt unwelcome in certain groups, I probably never would have joined...........who needs yet another place in life where you don't feel you belong?

This is why I am very much against excluding students of any stage in the process from any of the general membership forums, or setting aside a forum where they aren't welcome to participate. Now, more than ever, is when we need not only to welcome them, but EMBRACE them, as these are the people who will be taking care of US one day! Granted, it would not be out of line to expect some courtesy and respect for our position---while we have been students, students have never been nurses, and cannot possibly know yet what we 'experienced' nurses know.

But respect goes both ways..........and it is time for nurses of all ages and experience levels to acknowledge what each one of us brings to the profession, instead of worrying about what someone may be trying to take away from us. We are all adults here. Let us act that way, and help our future nurses grow!

The problem is, Marla, you can't vent here without a student/newbie telling you how terrible you are, "Get out, you burn out!" and an assortment of other nasty comments. Like I said earlier, I think about that member who was chased off this board by mostly students and new nurses who all but burned her at the stake merely because she said that after 20y she no longer had the energy to be a preceptor.

Students/nurses to be are very much protected here. Those of us with experience wouldn't dream of speaking to them the way many have spoken to us. Is that fair? Shouldn't experienced nurses be valued and protected too? I don't mean this as an attack on you as a moderator; I'm just asking in general. I have seen an increase in nastiness toward experienced nurses here, and I know that if the situation were reversed and it were directed at students/new nurses, it wouldn't be tolerated.

Personally, I am deeply offended that people get away with the "old battle-ax nurses," "old hag nurses," "nasty old nurses who eat their young" comments. Seeing those kinds of comments over and over makes me feel that we (experienced nurses) aren't valued.

Regarding students/new nurses telling us how we should feel/that we should get out if we're frustrated with a patient situation, it reminds me of an expression that was popular during the Viet Nam era: "You don't know, 'cause you weren't there, man!"

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Specializes in ICU, ER, HH, NICU, now FNP.
But respect goes both ways..........and it is time for nurses of all ages and experience levels to acknowledge what each one of us brings to the profession, instead of worrying about what someone may be trying to take away from us. We are all adults here. Let us act that way, and help our future nurses grow!

EXACTLY!!

There really are humans on the other end of the keyboards!

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Current irritation about this forum is that nursing students are posting request for information to help with their care plans/projects on this forum. What happened to the day when you had to do your own research for nursing papers?

:yeahthat:

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Can't we all just get along?

I wonder sometimes what people who visit allnurses every now and then, without becoming members themselves, must think about us when we can't even agree on what constitutes a "nurse"!:nono: There is nothing wrong with lively debate, nothing wrong even with disagreement; but there is something VERY wrong with attempting to exclude certain groups from our discussions.

I don't want to exclude them, not at all. I just want the judgemental ones to think long enough to realize that just because we don't fit their mental picture of the ideal nurse, that doesn't mean we are not good nurses who love what we do. And not all students are like this, the majority either don't feel this way or just don't voice it in threads where we are venting. The few who jump in with guns a-blazin', though.........

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see, i personally just ignore posts that have to do with NCLEX because I am not that interested in it yet (1.5 years away) and it has nothing to do with my situation yet. I probably will be that way about 6 months after I have taken it and hopefully passed and the novelty has worn off. As far as the students and careplans/homework thing those can easilly be ignored too, though I have found that with a lot of those posts, a lot of research and thought has already been put into it and they are just asking for feedback. nothing wrong with that, if you want to give it then do so, if not move on. That is the beauty of this forum. There is always so much going on you can find multiple threads that are interesting. I too dislike it when someone clearly wants to vent about XYZ and then are jumped on...but that isn't reserved for the experienced only. There are lots of times when a student or CNA vents about something and a nurse jumps in to say "well you are never going to make it as a nurse because______" or " I hope you are never my nurse because_____". Just the nature of the internet, I've probably even done it every once in awhile. My point is that all groups on here are going to annoy one another at some point be it LPN vs RN, NP vs RN, CNA vs MA, MA vs everybody with nurse as a part of their title, democrat vs republican , rural vs. city, distance learners vs. on campus learners, BSN vs ADN etc... we can't have a forum that is exclusive to all of those groups. It would take away from the overall place that allnurses is.

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