Hating nurses? What is going on?

It only takes one bad experience, one bad nurse...

It is kind of sad that we all pay the price for something somone else has done. Sometimes it is not even that something was done wrong but that the pt's perception of it was neg. and perception is everything. I wouldn't take it too personally. Just keep doing what you do well and you will make enough pt.s fans of nurses that those few who aren't will be drowned out in the applause. At least we aren't used car salespeople!

Hatred is often born out of fear. In my younger days, we were afraid of being at the mercy of a bad nurse. Unlike your PCP, you cannot choose your nurses.

When I was older (in my teens, that is), I would hear the other nurses talk about retaliating against patients they didn't like with enemas, laxatives, and large-bore needles. In those days, patients did what they were told and were not allowed "rights" or even to question the nurse or the doctor.

Nurses had a lot more power over patients back then.

So yeah, it makes a lot of sense to me that some of the older patients would absolutely hate nurses. Some of them had reason to, IMO.

Everyone needs a hobby, I guess.

LOL

Seriously, try OB-GYN nursing. There is a small but vocal minority who badmouths OB-GYN like crazy.

Hate nurses? Well, at least it makes a change from thinking of us as bedpan carriers! I wouldn't sweat it, the world is full of strange people and their equally strange and askewed opinions....it doesn't make them right!

it only takes one bad experience, one bad nurse...

any subsequent nurse first has to do "damage control" because of the bad experience, before they can even begin to establish a therapeutic rapport w/ the pt. sometimes it is like trying to bail while you were on the titanic!

I'd tell them to stick it and they'd better hope I'm not the one coming at them with a big needle when they're in a bed and helpless.

I'd tell them to stick it and they'd better hope I'm not the one coming at them with a big needle when they're in a bed and helpless.

Well that'll remedy the situation as quickly as anything I guess.

Seriously though, I'd pick my battles. I used to teach high school mathematics. In that position, I was sometimes the target of hate, but if I really concentrated, I could begin to "shine it on." With practice it became easier, and eventually it was just second nature.

Whatever, I do not have time for people who make sweeping generalizations regarding an entire group of people based on one experience. Their ignorance is simply not worth my time or effort.

any subsequent nurse first has to do "damage control" because of the bad experience, before they can even begin to establish a therapeutic rapport w/ the pt. sometimes it is like trying to bail while you were on the titanic!

bigsyis and emanuel goldstein are absolutely correct.

as a family member of hospital patients, i had seen enough bad stuff to make me absolutely terrified when i had to have an endoscopy/colonoscopy about a year ago. fortunately, the nurse assigned to my case was wonderfully caring and capable; i wrote to the doctor about her afterwards, and even put a "group thank you" in an earlier post on this site.

the point is that i didn't and don't hate nurses, or anybody else, but, prior to my good experience, the sight of someone in scrubs really was enough to make me very tense.

mg