Unprofessional nurses/power tripper's/ trouble makers

Nursing Students General Students

Published

I am a student presently in clinics. I love nursing, my patients, and looking forward to my future.

However, what I do notice is a lot of side gossip, clicks, and major power tripper's!

Are we not adults? Are we not suppose to act like adults, I'd think more so considering

our choice of career to top it off? But, what I see is this and I'm just going to say it how

I see it, and if anyone wants to add there Opinion I'm willing to hear it.

Certain, races seem to stick together, why is that? Why do people pick on certain people when they've done

really nothing wrong, but be nice...and do there job, mind there own business and yet they feel the need to

BELITTLE...hmmmmm, that is something I'm not understanding, at all? Nor, probably never will. I've been

biting my tongue, walking away, and smiling a lot, I'm not a "fake" person and love being just me...and am

pretty much to the patients, but my Gosh, some of the nurses (lvn's) I've been dealing with are flat out rude,

trouble makers, and seem like they are not happy unless trying to get you into trouble, or at least this is what

has been happening to me.

An example: One, I was given an order by my instructor (Rn) to do vitals on 50 pt's, and they needed

to be done by 01100. A lvn ( of a different race) asked me to pump up an air mattress, which apparently had

a hole in it..I said to her POLITELY that the RN had asked me to finish vitals, and that I would grab another student

who was not doing anything to get the job done, now. I did that, pretty much instantly within 3 min. She looked at

me and said, where is your teacher? I got my teacher and my teacher told her exactly that, I was given an order to get

the vitals in by 01100, btw it was around 10:45 a.mish.

Why, on earth would you be that petty? I wanted so badly to ask her if she felt powerful doing that, and trying to get me

into trouble, but I didn't.

I am NOT a racist person! But, I am noticing this group of nurses/students all stick together..and when this wound care nurse

is doing her rounds she will ask them if they want to watch but not me? Again, I am just dumbfounded right now by how some of the nurses treat each other. I'm not even a Lpn yet, and scared to death on how to deal with such petty, childish behavior.

Suggestions?

LVN Trave.s:

I'm a little disturbed by your post. If you are saying that you don't like the childish rude antics of your fellow nurses, then, O.K, I can understand that. I too wish that we had less of that in nursing.

But your post seems to go further than that when you say that "certain races stick together", and that you aren't "racist". I hope you don't think that these nurses are being rude to you because they are of a different race. I'm assuming that you are white, correct me if I'm wrong.

If these nurses are being rude to you and trying to bring you down, that's negativity and immaturity, it has NOTHING to do with race.

I have seen rude and childish nurses of all shades and colors and genders, for that matter. Please don't assume they are rude due to their race, or their gender. And don't assume that they are being rude to you because you may be a different race than them. That's stereotyping and generalizing, and plain wrong.

Not to mention, this type of thinking sets race relations in this country back 100 years. We need to come together in nursing, not to seperate ourselves based on race, that's dangerous.

Specializes in Pediatrics.
with an unprofessional attitude like that, that nurse will one day be a clinical instructor. guaranteed 100%.

:nono:

Is that really necessary?

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

if you go about your work which you say is "to care for pt's, be gentle" then why does all the game playing even matter? keep your mind focused on caring for your patients and being gentle. think about someone who would be a role model, such as mother theresa or the president. how do you think they would respond to that behavior? do you think they would jump in and participate in gossip, petty, childish, and highly unprofessional behavior? did they get where they are by losing their integrity? when you have high ideals you have to act with high ideals. being a role model is not easy. in the end, however, who gets the accolades? who gets noticed? not the gossipers and people who act childishly, but the ones who acted professionally and did the job the way it was supposed to be done. they are destined to advance nowhere.

Specializes in Geriatrics.

You have mentioned certain races stick together. There are some nursing students who cannot speak english very well or they had migrated to the country to recieve better education. I don't think it automatically means that one is racist.

Regarding that LVN, ignore her for now. If she act rude to you again. When you are calm, take her into a quiet room and tell her nicely that the way how she said this and that bothered you. Tell her your objective to learn and grow professionally from the unit and the staff. Make her feel important. Sometimes you have to make yourself a bit vulnerable.

Maybe there were other factors that contributed to the way how she acted towards you.

i'm still trying to get over the fact that your ci told you to get vitals on 50 patients in 15 minutes?? i can't do 8 in that time, and properly interact with my patients, i don't know anyone who could.

i only play games as far as i actually have to please a ci. luckily, i've only had one who required the petty game playing. i ignore the others, as much as i can.

i'm the biggest team player there is. i help everyone do anything, from cleaning up the "code brown's" to wiping up the small spill on the floor (yeah, like i'm actually going to call maintainence to mop up that small gravy spill--but i've seen people do it). do you know what i get from my attitude of cooperation with everyone from the cna's, cleaning staff and the rn's--usually, when i need help turning a patient or something else, they come and help me smiling.

I have to agree with NurseEducate a bit. My previous career was a male dominated profession, I can say that after the whole 'proving that you are capable as a woman in a male dominated profession' thing....I found it generally easy to work with men. I don't think it's men per se that are easier to work with, but the fact that I am a woman who was in a male dominated profession---does that make ANY sense? What I am trying to say is that my friends who were male in my prior industry said the same things you are saying--just about their male counterparts. I think it's a same sex battle in a way--maybe not even a conscious one.

I also agree wholeheartedly with Daytonite. Try to distance yourself from the gossip, ignore it and really, really try hard not to let the catty behaviors bother you. Unfortunately, some people get a real power trip from seeing others put down or flustered.

Hang in there.

three words:

female dominated profession

**any** profession dominated by females!

Specializes in telemetry, med-surg, home health, psych.

GET USED TO IT OR GET OUT........

sorry, but that is the way it is.........ignore it and do your work or become "one of them".....you will find the nice, kind ones, the bossy ones, the control freaks, the "know-it-alls", and the gossippy ones...(sometimes they overlap).....but that is the real world of nursing.......I just do my job and stay out of the messes.......that is the only way I can work........I don't want to hear the gossip, degrade others, etc.....be dedicated, concentrate on your pts, and you will be fine.........

I always prefer to work with men. I find women can exhibit some incidious behaviour at times. The professiona has become too dominated by females.

I think there is another dynamic to this topic. When we think of professionalisim we tend to think of registered nurses. I have always believed there has always been this war between qualified and unqualified staff. By that I mean CNAs and RNs with each the latter thinking and feeling they can do the job better than the RNs. Sometimes people are denied opportunities to advance and further themselves - i.e I am pretty certain there are a vast majority of CNAs who could have gone on to become RNs - but for whatever reason what not given the opportunity to do so either through circumstance or whatever.

After a while people can be overcome with disappointment and bitterness and may take their anger, jealousy and bitterness out on others the classic example can be an older CNA who may resent a newly qualified graduate nurse who has a BN. They may feel hurt and pain and anger that someone else had the opportunity to better themselves yet they didnt, which manifests itself in unprofessional behaviour.

I am not saying that all older CNAs behave in this way towards newly qualified graduates. Another example is when a nurse has higher qualifications or is dual qualifed but is working in an enviornment where the majority of nurses may be for example ADN trained and you may be that nurse who has their BSN or even their MSN.

So it goes on and on. Again the roots of unprofessional behaviour can often be found in professional jealousy.

+ Add a Comment