I don't understand this profession..

[smg]

I have been a nurse for almost 8 years. During these years, I have worked in many different areas at two different hospitals. What I do not understand is the bitterness, bickering, and unprofessional behavior that happens on the floor.

I think this has always been a problem, but it seems to have become increasingly worse. Yesterday I witnessed a colleague rip apart another nurse, the director, and a nursing assistant. The other nurses on the floor then began to tear into the first nurse and it became a very tense working environment.

Nurses are in such great demand and I see why. Unless you have thick skin and can take being harassed by coworkers, you will leave the profession too.

Nurses not only eat their young, but also their old, strong, weak, and whoever else.

Yesterday, I was ashamed to call myself a nurse. I am a second career nurse and I have never witnessed behavior in coworkers in my life. The incident yesterday was just one example there have been many others of nurses bring each other down.

I needed to vent about this because it makes me sad. I have a niece and nephew that both were thinking about the nursing profession while in school. Thanks heavens that I was able to talk them out of it. They deserve more out of their career.

[Diahni]

I worked as a bookkeeper and accountant before going to nursing school. When I worked for a large corporation, everyone sat up at attention and looked busy when the president and CEO took a stroll through the office. However, respect begets respect. I don't ever remember the CEO telling people their desks were too cluttered or to get a coffee cup off their desk. If there was a problem he sent the message down the chain of command. Even the mob bosses know enough to put buffers between them and the guys who do the actual dirty work. I'd just chalk it up to insecurity and inexperience on the part of the administrator and laugh if off. When we were new at our job, I'm sure we each did some things that weren't quite in our job descriptions because we were nervous that gave others something to talk about and point a judgmental finger at. Can't we be forgiving of a new learner?

Yes, what's up with that? Being a nurse takes so much patience, yet more experienced nurses can have zero patience with we newbies. My take: Low self esteem. If you feel crappy about yourself, what a nice treat to find someone even more loathesome! Truth be told, I find most nurses very patient, but there's the odd one who really needs to rag on somebody - prferably a nursing student. "Stuck people stick people," I say!

[chadash]

I worked as a bookkeeper and accountant before going to nursing school. Even the mob bosses know enough to put buffers between them and the guys who do the actual dirty work.

(selectively edited. And by the way that's bookie, not bookkeeper...

Now you're talking! Let's run hospitals like Mafias! I love it!

Strangely, when I have had opportunity to sit in a nurse's station, I have instinctively kept my back to the wall. Interesting....oh fugetaboutit!

Here's how it might play out at Mafioso General Hospital:

Remember, I‘am just an empty suit (CNA), so bear with me here.

First, don’t let anyone into the organization (hospital) unless your consigliere (HR?) can vouche for them, capishe?

Now the capos (RNs) need to watch the associates (LPN’s*). Use your enforcers it you need to.

This is important if you ever need to hit the mattress with any rival hospital.

*And always take a walk with them when you take report.

Mickey BlueEyes Finn

AKA The Grandmother

[HisAlone]

After 25 years as a data communications engineer I decided to retire and go into nursing. So far after just 2 years I am horrified. Can't go back to engineering because everything changes so fast while you're out of the loop - it'd be like starting over in kindergarden. So I found myself stuck in a career that I was totally disgusted with. No problems AT ALL with patients, just the other nurses, management and staff. Then I learned three beautiful words:

HOME HEALTHCARE NURSING

I now spend my entire day with my lovely patients and pop into the office for maybe 1 hour a week to pick up supplies, drop off paperwork, etc. Tis a beauteous thang!

Also, I HIGHLY recommend "The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense" series of books written by Suzette Haden Elgin. Excellent techniques on how to avoid and diffuse verbal abuse in the workplace. A MUST for anyone going into nursing.

[LeahJet, ASN, RN]

This sounds a lot like the title of the post that was closed not long ago.

[Roy Fokker, BSN, RN]

When I was a firefighter, I learned about the fire triangle.

We were taught that three elements need to be present in order for fire to ignite--oxygen, heat, and fuel. Remove any one of the three and there is no fire.

Hostile work environments need certain elements to ignite as well. The "oxygen" might be a managerial approach that lets negativity breathe unchallenged, an atmosphere of carelessness, disrespect, and passivity that allows problems to spark and spread.

I'd equate the heat with the pressure that comes from consistent understaffing, unreasonable job expectations, lack of equitable pay and benefits, inadequate training and educational support, and anything else that raises expectations without commensurate preparation and support.

The fuel is the job itself. Patient care is both an art and a science and as such, requires a tremendous amount of inate ability, training, and experience. We need to know, not only this huge body of knowledge called nursing, but how best to apply it in each individual situation and under the watchful eyes of the docs, the families, and each other. This is an awesome responsibility.

In recent years, the fire triangle has become a tetrahedon (a four-sided figure that looks like a pyramid). The added element is chemical reaction. The three other elements can exist simultaneously without creating fire. It is the addition of a chemical interaction among the three that sparks ignition.

I guess I'd equate that chemical reaction with the poison that some people carry around inside them. We ALL--by the virtue of being human--have the capability to be self- and other-destructive. But healthy people try to keep short accounts and deal with their emotional needs and wants in constructive ways as they come up. The less healthy among us carry backpacks full of unfinished business--old hurts and angers, insecurities, jealousies, fears, etc. that influence how they act today. These walking wounded sometimes take perverse pleasure in seeing others fail or even outright taking them down because it can FEEL like righting old wrongs and settling old scores.

Nursing, in and of itself, is a demanding task. Add inadequate management, unreasonable pressure, and personal poison and you have the conditions for a perfect firestorm that has the potential to scorch, burn or even consume those it touches.

Not every fire is a disaster. Some workplaces contain all of these elements but don't result in a conflagration. But others rage out of control with no end in sight.

Why do we put up with intolerable conditions? There is an old analogy that explains much. If you put a frog into a pot of boiling water, it immediately leaps out to escape the pain. But, if you put a frog into a pot of cold water and turn on the heat, it adapts, little by little, until the water reaches a boil and kills it.

What an irony that some healthcare facilities are among the least healthy places on earth for any sane person to work.

In the military, I went to NCO school and they taught that if you have a problem, take it up with that person. If someone brings a problem to you about another person, unless it cannot be handled between the two (ex. sexual harrassment, etc), then as a supervisor, the person bringing the problem should be instructed to deal with it directly with their co-worker, first.

I live by the maxim: 'Praise in public; criticize in private'. If I have a problem with a fellow nurse, nobody knows about it unless that nurse shares our conversation with others. If I like something a fellow nurse did, I try to make sure everybody knows about it.

:yeahthat:

Brav-O!

[Agnus]

I believe it comes from a profound sense of powerlessness. It is all some of us have left. When you feel unapreciated, overwhelmed, etc. and don't seem to be able to do anything about it you begin to lash out at those who are handy. In facilites where you have support, appreciation, atonomy you don't see this or see less of it.

I have worked in both kinds of enviorments. And I am currently know as "the grouch" . I have absolutely no autonomy, any attempt to advocate for patients is shot down or ignored or laughed at. I am not alone in my situation. We are all frustrated. So guess what?

Yet, I have worked where people actually took what I said seriously and backed me up gave me support. I am ignored where I now work. You figure it out.