What Is the Problem With These Nurses?

Sheri257 · Dec 1, 2006

Frankly, it sounds as if there's no standard for becoming a preceptor in the situation that you describe.

There really isn't. They're always short on preceptors so ... basically, it's anyone who wants to do it.

:typing

GardenDove · Dec 1, 2006

I really disagree with theory that hospitals allow bullying in order to control their employees. I don't think every situation is the same, and there are some nurses that claim they are picked on when in fact their own work is deficient. It's not always easy for management to sort through complaints by employees, to see which ones are valid. It's similar to trying to referee your kids.

We have one gal at my small hospital, she fits into the above catagory. We are a critical access rural hospital, so everyone knows everyone, and I've heard the story from many different points of view. She came as a new RN to OB. Yes, there are some strong characters in that dept, esp on days. She always complained about the gals over there being mean. She had a million write ups, and I heard from the OB gals that she just wasn't getting it, she was lazy, and had an attitide of 'woe is me'. I noticed, whenever she floated over to med-surg where I worked at the time that she never wanted to pitch in. They were having a difficult time staffing OB and the manager seemed to give her chance after chance.

Finally, something happened where she missed a totally unreassuring monitor strip, and they almost lost a baby. The doc in question made a stink, was very upset, and she was ousted from OB permenantly. Management decided to give her a chance on Med-Surg, since she had never learned med-surg after nrsg school.

I now work CCU and floated to med-surg last Friday. Remember, we are a very small hospital. I worked with her for 4 hours, she was finishing up an 8 hr evening shift and I was starting my 12 hour night shift. She pawned 3 admits within 2 hrs on me, and it turned out she only had 2 fairly easy pts. The other nurse had 4 difficult ones, one of whom was extremely disruptive and the one CNA was totally tied up with him. When she pressed me to take the 3d admit, one that she was due to take, I falsely assumed that she was overwhelmed with her pts. Well, the unit secretary ended up furious, and decided to write an email to our manager (she manages CCU and med-surg), after she tried to reason with this gal who spent the last hour of her shift on the internet. I said I would write one too. Nightshift got in on the act, since they found deficiencies in her charting (they do regularly), and the manager heard from all quarters, and responded very positively to my email, thanking me for going above and beyond for the pts and affirming that I wasn't the only one to give her feedback on that evening.

I'm certain that this gal will claim that she is picked on and is a victim. But, her work ethic stinks and she is a lousy teamplayer. My point is that some people claim they are bullied when in fact the problem is with themselves.

Elle.p.enn · Dec 4, 2006

What haven't I been doing and what are my shortcomings?
:typing

I can tell from this statement that, unfortunately, you have ended up with a less-than-satisfactory preceptor.

It's part of the preceptor's job to provide you with feedback.

I'm in a preceptorship now as well, and my preceptor is fantastic. She gives me feedback constantly, lets me know exactly what my shortcomings are, is consistent, and empowering.

It benefits the preceptor to prepare you as well as she can, you can help her out if you work there later!

Maybe you can confront her throughout the day, say "How do you think I'm doing so far today?" or "My goals are to give an accurate and complete report, how do you think I'm doing on this goal?" Keep it professional and in line with your clinical objectives.

DolphinRN84, MSN, RN, APRN, NP · Dec 4, 2006

I've always thought the "nurses eating their young" phenomenon was somewhat of a misnomer, since we're not their children and I know students can impose a lot of burdens on nurses. But, when you're pretty functional and helping out with most of the work, and some nurses still beat you down to a pulp, I just don't get it.
What's the point of being so mean? I'm running my butt off all day, I'm giving all of the meds, doing all of the charting, aide work, etc. for most of the patients. Yet, no matter how hard I work, there's still a constant barrage of criticism ...
Of course, I make mistakes and I definitely need to improve in a lot of areas. No question about it. Nevertheless, I am not a total novice and, despite my shortcomings, I do know I'm making their day a hellava lot easier.
But ... I'm only human, and I do tend to make even more mistakes when I know I'm going to get slammed no matter what I do. After awhile, no matter how tough you are, it's difficult to concentrate and do everything the nurse wants when you know she's hostile and looking for any opportunity to jump on your case ... even when you do things right.
I actually don't need nor do I expect praise or reassurance but, like a lot of people, I don't tend do well when I getting slammed all the time either.
I can't wait to get out of there and let them get back to doing all the work. Thankfully, my days of slave labor will soon be over. I hope they got their jollies because if this is how they make themselves feel better or whatever it is ... good riddance.
:typing

Hope you are doing better lizz. I agree with the post that talked about nurses who have only been there for a year or 2 and act like they don't know what it's like to be student..let alone a new grad nurse! It makes me so mad.

tiroka03, LPN · Dec 4, 2006

I also would put some blame on the college. I know that some students feel they know more than the nurses with whom they will be mentoring. Students are being applauded for their achievements, and they should be, but it may help to give an inservice on the dynamics of working on the floor, and sharing a nurses' assignment. As an LPN, when RN students are assigned to my patients, it is a set up for trouble. There will at least one student who has predecided they are more knowledgable and better qualified to be on the floor than the LPN. Yet, as the nurse on the floor who finds problem after problem the student is creating or missing, it gets old. I have standards with I adhere to with patient care and compassion and comfort of patients and family. Many, if not most of the students will strive for these same goals, but not every student. And it will be that one student who will squeak and squak about how stupid their nurse was. You know the one, you walk in and find her cleaning a wound with water she cleaned the patients bm. Who throws you a dirty look, when you point out that isnt correct procedure and it's that student then believes you as a nurse are stupid and rude.

If you were to create an inservice pretaining to both students and nurses, what would the main points be.

Students:

1. these patients aren't yours, you are being allowed to learn with them, but they are really the staff nurses responsibility.

Nurses:

1. the students are wanting to learn and prove and improve their skills. Be careful not to squash their good intentions.

Sheri257 · Dec 6, 2006

I can tell from this statement that, unfortunately, you have ended up with a less-than-satisfactory preceptor.
It's part of the preceptor's job to provide you with feedback.
I'm in a preceptorship now as well, and my preceptor is fantastic. She gives me feedback constantly, lets me know exactly what my shortcomings are, is consistent, and empowering.
It benefits the preceptor to prepare you as well as she can, you can help her out if you work there later!

Well ... I am doing better now because it's finally over ... thank god! And, believe me ... I will NOT be working there. As far as I'm concerned, she can do her own work from now on. The last day I was there ... she spent most of the day reading magazines and talking shopping with her friends.

Some of her feedback wasn't that bad, it's just that she was really rude in the way she went about it. I've had other preceptors during externships and they'd tell me what they'd think all the time .... it's just that they didn't feel the need to be rude and disrespectful. There's a big difference.

And a lot of times, she wasn't consistent at all. She'd tell me not to do something, then chew me out for following her instructions which, she conveniently forgot.

Quite frankly, some of her instructions were completely screwed up. She'd always tell me to wait for the trays to come out before taking blood sugars which, sounds great in theory.

But when a bunch of the five o'clock meds are due at the same time the trays are coming out, the whole run is nothing but diabetics, and some patient inevitably ends up having a problem like not being able to breathe and you've got to take care of that ... you're not going to get everybody's blood sugar and insulin done before they start eating.

So, inevitably, one of those diabetics' sugar is going to skyrocket and then I'll get blamed for it.

I asked her to let me do the glucose checks and insulin a little earlier ... which is what was actually listed on the MAR ... but, she wouldn't let me. Then, of course, it was my fault when one of the patient's blood sugars skyrocketed.

I should have done a better job of prioritizing and checking that particular patient first however ... with the entire run being diabetic patients, I also did anticipate that this could happen and I did try to avoid it but, to no avail.

Whatever ... :rolleyes:

It's done now.

:balloons:

kindaquazie · Dec 6, 2006

Change employers. When you work in an institution that encourages continuing and higher education for nurses, respects their knowlege and experience, and rewards their committment financially, you do not see this behavior. There is no reason for any nurse to be bitter. We can go anywhere, work with any type of patient, or no patient at all, and be welcomed with open arms and paid well. If nurses are bitter, it is because they don't understand the immense power they hold. Nurses represent 1% of the US population and 1 in 40 registered voters. Any nurse can leave an unsatisfactory job and have 3-4 offers by noon the same day. Please, if you cannot change where you work, go somewhere you will be treated the way you deserve. You risk becomming that which you dispise if you continue to stay.

sarahbellum · Dec 6, 2006

It's not just hostile nurses in clinicals. I have 2 very hostile instructors. I can tolerate the perfection-make you whither with her stare type-when you have screwed up. These two instructors pick out the weak ones with no confidence and knock them down without picking them up later.

Its just another symptom of the nursing shortage. My mom is also in nursing school and she says she is pretty sure they recruited for her instructors at the mental hospital.

Are you unbalanced? Can't work as a hospital nurse? Then, try teaching and eat your young!

melpn · Dec 6, 2006

OK, to all of you students and new grads out there, here it is in a nutshell. It sucks in the beginning. We are short-staffed and precepting takes more time and effort, yet mgmt. throws exta pts. on the preceptor because "you have help today". It makes for resentment among the old staff. That is no excuse to treat the newbies that way so don't flame me. If you don't treat the newbies kindly, then they'll never stay. And it fosters that weird cycle of "that's how I was treated so I'm going to do the same when I become the preceptor" attitude. I make the time and try to really teach them. I've had nothing but positive feedback from my students. I love their enthusiasm and utilize them to refresh my memory for the stuff like drip rates that I forgot 10 years ago because we all use pumps now. Remember, you can learn as much from the bad preceptors as you can from the good ones, if for nothing else than how not to do it when it's your turn. Hang in there! M

Sheri257 · Dec 6, 2006

We are short-staffed and precepting takes more time and effort, yet mgmt. throws exta pts. on the preceptor because "you have help today". It makes for resentment among the old staff.

I'm in California where we have ratios. Because of that, we never got more than five patients and, towards the end, I took all five so ... increased patient loads wasn't an excuse for my preceptor.

:typing

lovingtheunloved, ASN, RN · Dec 6, 2006

Wow. I worked with some awesome nurses this semester, and I learned a ton from them. Thank you to all the great preceptors out there!

Dorito, ASN, RN · Dec 6, 2006

I was an LPN when I went back to school for RN. A nurse at one of the clinical sites treated me horribly the first day. The next day she found out I was already an LPN (for 15 years) and apologized profusely. I explained to her the only thing harder than working with a student was BEING one. I also told her there were other LPN's in the clinical. (there weren't) She told me she thought I should be obligated to tell the nurses I was assigned to that I was already a nurse. I still can't understand her thinking but I'll never forget how she made me feel. I think maybe when nurses treat students that way they feel insecure about slipping up in front of a student. Best of luck to all the students and I hope all your preceptors are kind and understanding.