Disclaimer: This is not to bash US nurses at all, you're all great. Love your work.
OK. After reading through a lot of these threads, especially the ones titled things like "Nurses eat their young", I have noticed that American nurses in general seem to be very competitive with each other and almost perpetuate this "eating their young" thing by going in with a defensive attitude. In many of the threads, nurses are frustrated by colleagues who have no respect for teamwork or 'mateship'. Now, I don't profess to have much experience at all. I have worked as an AIN for a month, and been a student for two years. I have found every single nurse I've met to be helpful and cooperative. There are certainly some who could use a few more communication classes, but all in all there have been no major problems.
It could just be me. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. I also go in to a ward with the assumption that everyone will be nice, and I make sure I appear enthusiastic and helpful. When I don't understand or know something, I ask before it becomes a problem.
Do you think that this is a difference in Australian *nursing* culture specifically, or Australian culture in general? Or have I been extremely lucky?
