Nurses with stank attitudes.

Nursing Students General Students

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I know some of you have heard this rant before. Nurses that are so snotty and nasty when it comes to student nurses. I've had quite of few nurses that I shared patients with that have horrible attitudes. I don't understand it. We give all meds except IV Push this semester and all we do is get report with them in the morning, view their first assessment and from there that's it other than a few random questions. We basically relieved them of one extra patient. But the attitudes kill me. I guess they don't realize they were once in our shoes, its not like they sprang forth from the womb with fabulous nursing skills, no nursing school needed. I had a nurse today who was cold to me and the other medical staff. She warmed up towards the end of the day when she realized she wouldn't have to baby sit me and I actually took some work off her shoulders. I almost hate to have to deal with them.

Specializes in Critical Care.

I wrote a wonderful post for y'all and my computer died before I could post it. And my writing is never as good the second time around. But here goes:

There is no excuse to be rude. But. Nursing doesn't take away somebody's underlying personality. And stress has a way of bringing out the best AND the worst in everybody. The nurse that is inconceivably rude to you in that stress is a totally different person out of work and away from that stress. Well, in most cases.

Some people just aren't teachers and have no idea how to be. You say that all you do is observe their first assessment. Some people DO NOT LIKE TO BE OBSERVED. It can be a very self-conscious event. Are you observing me or critiquing me???

TPTB (standard All Nurses abbrev if you are new here - the powers that be) put all kinds of requirements on nurses without regard to what is already on their plates. It might just not be about you. It doesn't matter how much effort it actually takes to work with you if that nurse feels that you have been pushed on them. It's not about how much effort it takes as much about a rebellion against being required to take on that effort. Does that make sense?

There are gems out there. And there are people out that aren't good teachers. Learn from the gems. But learn from the others, too. Learn to use other resources. Use your instructor.

Above all else, don't take it personally. It's the old saying: don't let the b******* get you down. Don't. Because, this and many many other threads here should convince you that this is a fairly universal clinical experience. That being the case - it's not about you. Don't make it about you.

Keep the faith. Nursing school is a learning experience. Learn from all of it. If nothing else, learn about what you DON'T want to be as a nurse. That's what I learned the most from the variety of nurses I encountered in clinicals. I learned about the kind of nurse I wanted to be. And the kind I didn't.

~faith,

Timothy.

I understand your post, but the nurses we work with are not expected to hold our hand and baby us the entire clinical day. I know they don't owe me a cotton picking thing. I know they have a job to do, common sense tells me that. All we do is observe their first assessment and that's about it. Really no further contact. All of our teaching and interaction comes from our instructor, the way it should be, IMO because that's what I'm paying my tuition for. I don't understand how that can be considered a burden on a nurse considering they have one less patient to worry about while we are there. The nurse I worked with today even admitted at the end of the day that I helped her out a lot because she had so many patients to tend to. Now how that warrants a nasty attitude, I don't know.

I am a 29 year old woman with plenty of work experience with the public and I know people will have different personalities. It just amazes me sometimes how cold some people can be, because that is not a part of my personality. I'd rather a nurse just say, " I don't want to nursing student today" and leave it at that than for them to be bitter and nasty for the rest of the day.

I so agree with you Pickmeplze, with every word you have said I am with you 100%. I just wish that the nurse that I get paired up with say I dont want to help a nursing student. Its more worth it that you dont get paired up with nasty ignorant people like that. Or else they will make your day feel like you know crap. Yes there are many cold people to face day in and day out. However while training surely we want the best for our practical, or why bother eh.

I hate how people say Grow a thick skin. Well really how I think of it is, if we are employed in a nursing profession which is about CARING. Why cant it be extended to nursing students too. I dont think its about growing thick skin and then we could say to those cold hearted nurses, HAVE A HEART.'

I dont know, nursing now is not what I thought it would be. I thought it would be about friendliness. However I see some nurses with their guards up way too much.

Anyways, just wanted to say I am with you with your comments ;)

Specializes in Critical Care.
I hate how people say Grow a thick skin. Well really how I think of it is, if we are employed in a nursing profession which is about CARING. Why cant it be extended to nursing students too. I dont think its about growing thick skin and then we could say to those cold hearted nurses, HAVE A HEART.'

I think one of the biggest misconceptions about nursing is that nurses somehow have some superhuman, angelic 'caring' gene.

We are people. All of us. Not angels. And most of us work in stress situations that can be compared to war zones.

Nursing probably isn't what you imagined it to be. And probably won't be. The question isn't how are you going to make it what you want it to be, but whether you can integrate reality into your perceptions.

I'm not apologizing for rudeness. But, if you think that all your co-workers are going to be cozy caring angel buddies, that is a misconception that you have to adjust.

It's easy to say that nurses should be more caring to students. Very easy to say. But. If you want to adapt to nursing, the easier act is for you to come to terms with the realities of the profession. You can't make others more 'caring' but you can make yourself less susceptible to being upset by the behaviors of others. That being the case, 'grow a thick skin' is by far more practical advice.

~faith,

Timothy.

Specializes in med/surg, telemetry, IV therapy, mgmt.

The staff nurses you have been exposed to aren't the only ones who are snotty and nasty. Part of your nursing education is to learn to deal with these kinds of people. Believe me, it isn't just some of the staff nurses you have come into contact with who are like this. Doctors and staff that you will eventually supervise can also be this way. I hope you are picking your instructor's brains on the best ways to deal with these kind of people because they can be found in all walks of life. As a staff nurse I've had two nursing students who were rude and snotty. My standard reply to them, as it is to anyone else who treats me that way, was, "don't talk to me like that, I'm trying to help you".

I don't understand how that can be considered a burden on a nurse considering they have one less patient to worry about while we are there. .

I would like to echo MarieLPN's sentiment; the floor nurse (me) is STILL responsible for that pt, no matter if there is a student, no matter that there is a clinical instructor who's license will be on the line as well. You, as a the floor nurse, still have ultimate responsibility for that pt. When the students leave you still have the cares, etc. for the pt. Now, I love teaching students and having them, and I do not think anything excuses bad attitudes. However, I do not relax when there is a student. I can't. I do seek out the students if there is time to do cares/meds/proceedures if there is time, but the safety and care for my patient is still the first priority. If that offends you, I'm sorry, but my patient(s) come first.

Specializes in Med-Surg, Trauma, Ortho, Neuro, Cardiac.

I'm sorry that you're having such a hard time.

There's two sides to every story. I'll leave it at that.

Good luck in all you do.

Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.
No offense, but that kind of attitude is why my home hospital couldn't recruit into the OR. I wouldn't expect students to scrub in, but I would hope they would at least be welcomed to observe and participate in ways that are safe. I hope a blanket ban isn't the answer to your bad student.

Personally, I don't think there is any excuse for staff nurses to be rude to students. Yes, I'm a staff nurse and there are days that I am stressed and running around like a fool. But, I haven't forgotten that I was once a student too and if we aren't welcoming to them as students they sure aren't going to apply to work with us as nurses. That just makes the shortage worse.

I already established that i was nice to the student, so please do not assume that i wasn't. And i said i had a problem with a student scrubbing in, observing is a whole other thing.

Specializes in critical care; community health; psych.

I have nothing but good things to say about the nurses who are mentoring us through this final rotation of our nursing school experience. I have to admit, it's the exact opposite of the horrible experience I had last semester. We are rotating through the units and the nurses buddy up with us. They don't seem to mind taking time to show us things and actually go out of their way to do so, including us in codes and crashing patient situations. They're a great group and have made all the difference in my learning curve. I hope everyone gets to experience nurses at their best.

Specializes in Oncology/Haemetology/HIV.
I would like to echo MarieLPN's sentiment; the floor nurse (me) is STILL responsible for that pt, no matter if there is a student, no matter that there is a clinical instructor who's license will be on the line as well. You, as a the floor nurse, still have ultimate responsibility for that pt. When the students leave you still have the cares, etc. for the pt. Now, I love teaching students and having them, and I do not think anything excuses bad attitudes. However, I do not relax when there is a student. I can't. I do seek out the students if there is time to do cares/meds/proceedures if there is time, but the safety and care for my patient is still the first priority. If that offends you, I'm sorry, but my patient(s) come first.

Ditto!!!!!!

As I have said before, I rarely get any notice that I will be working with a student. And virtually ALL of them have increased my workload, not to mention that sometimes staffing does the infamous "well, they have students, so I can short staffing a bit".

I am a traveler, so I do not receive any pay, orientation, nor longterm "brownie points" with my managers for having students with me. And I have had students assigned to me within my FIRST WEEK on a new unit....as though there is any way that I might be able to help a student when I am still finding my way around the facility.

And if instructors actually did much of the supervision, it would be easy......but very few of them actually do the majority of the supervision. If the instructors even have a clue, they would not assign a student to a new traveler, but the fact is that they do. Quite bluntly, many instructors are overworked and underpaid for what they do.

I regret that someone is being grouchy to you. But if you think that the nurses are grouchy, wait until you deal with Admissions, ER/ICU transfers, MDs, patients and visitors. But please understand that there are two sides to every story. One day, when you graduate, and you are assigned 8 patients (all with different MDs) to care for, two days into a brand new hospital assignment, and you have to answer questions from 4 different students and their instructor is nowhere to be found, you will realize that there is more to working with students than "Well, I have less patients, today...goody". Especially, when you get students without being warned ahead of time.

Specializes in PeriOp, ICU, PICU, NICU.
Those stank attitudes don't go away once you aren't a student anymore. There will always be aids, secretaries, housekeepers, nurses, charge nurses, managers, and doctors with stank attitudes. Don't let those people stand in the way of your success.

So true. Same goes with any other field and job. :)

Just as a patient can refuse to work with a student a nurse can as well. You can also redirect students to their instructor if its not some kind of emergency.

Having worked with students and been an instructor and now a staff nurse again I would like to say that if you can't nurture a student the tiniest bit then don't complain when you can't get new staff. Some nurses are threatened by students because they are insecure in their knowledge or know they are taking bad short cuts and think students will recognize this (mostly they don't). Sometimes there is a communication problem as to what the students are doing / supposed to be doing / allowed to do. Those things should be clarified with the instructor. In general a few kind words to a student will go a long way.

Specializes in Rural Health.

I've ran into far more nasty techs, unit secretaries and housekeepers than nurses where we do our clinical rotations. Even the docs are awesome. I have no idea what the reason is. Maybe its the schools relationship with the facility, maybe it's the fact our clinical group is only 6, maybe it's the fact we know how to balance the fine line of getting clinical experience w/o driving everyone batty in the process (or instructor is awesome at that).

We don't ask questions of the nurses, we ask our team leader 1st (final semester senior) or we ask our clinical instructor. More than likely the nurse (or another nurse) is in earshot of this question and on more than one occassion has been more than happy to help us out. Hell, yesterday I had a doctor stop what she was doing and explain something to me (in a very nice matter and tone). The staff (U/S, docs and nurses) are very good at seeking us out for certain clinical procedures. Yes, it takes time from their busy day, but they also know that we won't be $hit when we graduate unless we get to see and do. We appreciate them for that and believe me, I know a lot of times it would just be easier to do it themselves w/o involving a student at all, but again, they know we can't learn to do if we don't see or try to do.

I'm not going to say that everyone I've been in contact with since starting clinicals has bent over backwards for me, I've had some nasty people in general, but overcome and adapt. I'm a big believer in for every 1 nasty person, there are 20 that aren't. The nasty people of the world tend to stand out more than the not so nasty people.

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