Is this a *really* BIG problem?

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  1. Do nurses eat their young?

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It's become a cliché about nurses: they aren't very nice to the newer nurses that come on the floor. Of course, nursing is not a profession for coddling, but new grads need help. They can't be thrown to the sharks and expected to be successful.

Those are the opening lines of an article on how we can help grad nurses. It's stirring quite a bit of debate, especially on Facebook too...

  • How do young nurses treat the experienced nurses of our profession?
  • Are the young eating the old too?
  • Does strong leadership solve this problem?
  • Is this a really BIG problem?

What do others think????

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Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.

Type NETY into the search bar, and you will find enough threads to keep you busy for days. Yes, some nurses are disrespectful to new hires. Same as other specialties out there. The reverse is true as well where the newbies disrespect the experienced staff. And there are those who cry bullying/NETY when the situation really isn't bullying/NETY. It's an overused cliche that needs to go away.

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I would say that YES, strong leadership can go a long way towards nipping this kind of crap. In my unit, we NEVER had that kind of thing going on, either the experienced harassing the new nurses, or vice versa. Our unit manager was so awesome; we wanted to please her. She had very high standards, but she would go to bat for us in a second if need be. She chose her charge nurses very carefully; these men and women were aces as far as critical care goes, and made sure to be resources for the new nurses. Any new grad who came into the unit thinking they knew it all was quickly disabused of that notion. Our unit was teamwork all the way, with very low turnover. I credit our unit manager for that. She was the perfect combination of firm/understanding. That takes a person with a lot of great qualities to pull off.

She could walk the walk, too. I saw her drop what she was doing and take over a patient if his nurse had to travel with her other patient to CT or other location. She came in a few times on her day off when staffing was an issue. She knew her stuff.

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Specializes in Pediatrics, Mother-Baby and SCN.

I think that a lot of cases perceived to be "nurses eating their young" are when a new grad is overly confident/cocky and therefore a danger to patients by "not knowing what they don't know".

So, advice to new grads

-be humble. You don't know everything. Be eager to learn from all the experiences of your coworkers. On downtime on nights, etc, it's a good opportunity to ask for others stories and experiences and learn from these. This was often my favourite way to spend downtime, and actually still is!

-If someone corrects you, or tells you something DON'T reply "I know". even if you thought you did. Thank them, or say okay, and do it the next time the proper way. (also may be necessary to research policies/procedures to ensure the proper way to do it)

-ALWAYS LEARN. Just because you have graduated doesn't mean you have stopped learning. Research conditions your patients have that you aren't familiar with, spend time at home or lunch time etc, becoming more familiar with things you only have vague understanding of, ask your coworkers for help when you need it. NEVER DO SOMETHING YOU AREN'T SURE OF!! You can really hurt someone if you aren't doing it right. Ask for supervision or more practice etc when necessary!

I followed these tips myself, both given to me by friends who were nurses already, and some just from my own general experience and I never had issues. My coworkers were supportive and helpful. The only time I've seen anyone "eat their young" was when new grads were doing some of these unsafe practices. From the new grads point of view they may have felt they were being bullied, but from the nurses point of view they were looking out for patient safety and trying to humble the new grad to realize the magnitude of their responsibility. Yes sometimes this could have been done in a nicer way, but some nurses, like the general population, are a bit more blunt in their delivery. I have had a few blunt corrections myself when I was a new grad, and they stung at the time, but you can't make a correction into being bullied. In hindsight I realize the purpose and although as I said the delivery could have been nicer I definitely learned from these corrections!!

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I would say that YES, strong leadership can go a long way towards nipping this kind of crap. In my unit, we NEVER had that kind of thing going on, either the experienced harassing the new nurses, or vice versa. Our unit manager was so awesome; we wanted to please her. She had very high standards, but she would go to bat for us in a second if need be. She chose her charge nurses very carefully; these men and women were aces as far as critical care goes, and made sure to be resources for the new nurses. Any new grad who came into the unit thinking they knew it all was quickly disabused of that notion. Our unit was teamwork all the way, with very low turnover. I credit our unit manager for that. She was the perfect combination of firm/understanding. That takes a person with a lot of great qualities to pull off.

She could walk the walk, too. I saw her drop what she was doing and take over a patient if his nurse had to travel with her other patient to CT or other location. She came in a few times on her day off when staffing was an issue. She knew her stuff.

This.

And the strong leadership/management theme is prevalent in a few active threads right now. Agree completely.

Where are all the strong NM's? Oh, yea, that's it. We all got burnt out and quit.

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Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.

This has been "Done" to death already. Do a search and you will see many heated and lively debates as to whether "nursing eats it own" (NOTE: I SAID "IT'S OWN" not "IT'S YOUNG"). There is an important distinction.

Happy searching.

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