WHY are nurses so catty??

I'm so sorry this happened to your mother. I'd like to think it happened because the other nurse was genuinely concerned that your mom may not be able to keep up with the strenuous pace and hurt herself further, but the other side of me thinks yes...this may have been approached differently.

I personally would have asked her first.

I too find that as nurses we're trained to "look out" for each other a little too much. There really isn't the same sense of comraderie and togetherness that say, doctors have. (in the sticking together aspect). But that's just me.

Say hi to your mom from Z in Canada.

Z

I remember being in nursing school and one of my instructor's telling the class that "nurses eat their young...or their own..." or something like that. She said that nurses were some of the most competitive people you will ever meet. I really thought she was exaggerating...until I graduated and went to work in the field....or should I say...in the trenches...YES nurses eat their young. They are some of the most cold-hearted, back-stabbingest people I have ever met...I am sorry to say. Yes, you have b*****s everywhere, but you have an EXCESS in the nursing field! They will find and pick apart some of the most petty ridiculous things imaginable. SnowymtRN...I feel for your Mom...that other nurse was not worried about her in the least, if she had been, she'd have gone to your mom FIRST...as is often the case, unfortunately, more often than not, she was trying to stir up some trouble...it's a constant fight to watch your back...and I actually work with some of the more decent of the breed!!! UGHHHHHHHH.................and they wonder why there is a nursing shortage?????!!!!!!! :angryfire :angryfire

Just brainstorming here:

I think the causes are many-fold, but three that I can think of right off the top of my head are:

1. Nursing is a very demanding, detail oriented field. You have to be on the ball every minute, all the time to do this job right. You can't be daydreaming anytime. If you aren't paying attention, someone could really get hurt, or worse. So co-workers tend to be very demanding as well.

2. Nursing instructors are intensely detail oriented, they have to be to produce great nurses. They also have a personal mission to "weed out" the less than ideal nurses, and this is after people have had to jump through flaming hoops to get *into* nursing school. Nursing instructors do not get reprimanded for being difficult to please, they are rewarded for it.

3. To get *into* nursing school, you have to be very very competitive. You don't get in, unless you are fairly driven to succeed as a nurse, this would tend to select a group that is almost tailor-made for young-eating. It kind of reminds me of chickens. If a chicken sees another chicken with a speck of blood (or something red) on it, that chicken will come and peck the red spot, and other chickens will come and peck too, until the injured chicken is killed, or nearly killed. Does this promote the survival of the fittest, or the survival of the meanest?

Why are nurses so catty? Because nurses are mostly women and women are just catty.

Not to excuse their behaviour - they sound just a wee bit insensitive on that ward...!

But it could be happening because the nurses on that unit have been "burned" by some other nurse in the past, who wasn't able to carry her fair share of the load, etc.... I know when we've had a few new hires with various problems that did not get picked up on before the end of their probationary period - big headache then, believe me, no matter what the problem is! So we try to let the manager know about any issues with new staff members, just to keep the lines of communication open.

To me, it sounds like the "catty-ness" was on the part of the manager who took the nurses complaints straight to her face! imo, it's the managers job to look at the bigger picture and not take one or two shifts as indicators of what an employee will be like forever.... it could have been handled differently by the manager. Also, if the manager didn't reward the other nurses tattle-take behaviour with results, the behavior might not be so prominent.... why isn't the MANAGER telling her nurses to give the new person half a chance, or ask questions rather than accuse...?

Please don't generalize with the statement "why are nurses so catty". It makes us all look and sound bad.

Seems like someone would have asked about her knee before running to management. It sounds like management wasn't aware of her limitations though, and it sounds like it was affecting her job, so like it or not, it is a management issue. I agree it could have been handled better.

Then again, there are people who get irritated when people ask about personal health issues and the thread might have been "why are nurses so nosy?".

Hope you mom gets well soon.

Why are nurses so catty? Because nurses are mostly women and women are just catty.

Stereotypes will get us no where. You are so wrong.

Female nurses are catty because they are women, and frankly, many women are catty. Male nurses expect anyone who takes a job to be physically able to perform. It's not personal. In fact, the NM is doing her job by sending the newly hired RN to get eval'd. If the new RN can't physically do the job, now is the time to find out. Again, it's not personal, it's business.

Not to get into stereotypes, but this is only an issue because most nurses are women. Women look at this problem and see an injustice to the individual. Men look at it and see an injustice to the team.

Meow.

Pete Fitzpatrick

RN, CCRN, CFRN, EMT-P

Female nurses are catty because they are women, and frankly, many women are catty. ...

Pete Fitzpatrick

RN, CCRN, CFRN, EMT-P

Yup, he's right.

Stereotypes will get us no where. You are so wrong.

I am a woman and a nursing grad (waiting to take boards). I would not disagree with the statement that women are catty. I will not say all women, but many are. I worked in a female dominated factory for eight years, and it was the same way. The women talked about one another, got each other in trouble, ect. I changed positions within the factory to a machine setup, which means I worked more closely with the men within the factory. You just don't see the pettiness and backstabbing with men, for the most part. Men come to work to get a job done. They don't seem to be worried about each others personal life. The men never stirred up trouble like the women did. It may be sterotyping, but when the shoe fits, we have to wear it, unfortunatley.

To me, it sounds like the "catty-ness" was on the part of the manager who took the nurses complaints straight to her face! imo, it's the managers job to look at the bigger picture and not take one or two shifts as indicators of what an employee will be like forever.... it could have been handled differently by the manager. Also, if the manager didn't reward the other nurses tattle-take behaviour with results, the behavior might not be so prominent.... why isn't the MANAGER telling her nurses to give the new person half a chance, or ask questions rather than accuse...?

I agree...management has the responsibility to condone or condemn these things. I worked for the past year as a CNA in an icu, hired as a weekend-option employee. The job only carried full-time benefits if I added a 6-hour shift sometime in the week, so my manager and I agreed I'd pick a time for that shift based on my school schedule, and it would change each semester. The weekday shift CNA had called out, daily for 3 months in a row. She obviously had some stuff going on, and there was some kind of HR involvement. Fine, doesn't relate to me, right? Well, since I did my week-long orientation with her on the weekday shift before moving to weekends on my own, some of the weekday-shift nurses complained to the manager that *I* wasn't showing up for work, just like the other CNA- after I'd moved to my weekend shifts.

Now, remember, I was only *scheduled* for sat/sun and a half-shift during the week, normally at odd hours, due to classes. Did she set them straight? Nope. So several nurses decided I *must* be unreliable, and treated me like I was an idiot, and also assumed I was asleep in the lounge if I didn't run and help when they paged me (which never happened; I was always in another patient room, helping another nurse).

So I totally side with the OP's mother on this one. Nurse Managers have a responsibility to set the tone on a unit, and i think this one truly did the wrong thing by encouraging and condoning that type of behaviour.