Just one persons opinion

gentlegiver, ASN, LPN, RN · Aug 25, 2008

Being a LPN with 3 years experience I have only 1 thing to say to all you OLD/Experienced Nurses! Thank God for YOU!! I have learnt more from you all in the past 3 years than I'd ever learn in school. If given the choise of listening to a New Grad up on all the latest techy stuff, or someone who has been there and done that..... I'll take the old timer! A million thanks for being willing to teach those of us who are hungry to learn!

dauschundlover · Aug 25, 2008

Thanks for your opinions. Don't get me wrong having just left a hospital where if I had received a dollar for everytime someone said "because that's the way we've always done it" I would now be retired. All I'm saying is that I have been a nurse for 27 years and I'm always looking for newer and better ways to do things but usually I'm met with the previous statement. Trust me I remember being taught practice that truly made no sense. But there is no replacement for experience. I'm sorry to say that when others impose their way of practice on another just because it doesn't agree with their's and there is no harm to the patient they are being rude. As long as the patient is safe I myself do not try to say "u need to do it this way", which basically means you have to do it my way. I just wish these over educated leaders would spend just a little more time in the trenches with us working nurses before making such an insulting blanket statement. I'm willing to learn and to be taught but I'm not willing to have someone tell me my years of experience mean nothing. It's attitudes like this that harm nursing. I've worked with nurses who r so caught up in how they do things, ie securing an IV, that they step on another colleagues toes just to impose their "standard". I've come to learn that there are many ways to get from a to b, as long as the standards of practice are maintained and no harm comes to the patient. What scares me most is that these people with multiple initials after their name feel they have my best interest at heart.

RN1989 · Aug 25, 2008

I've worked with nurses who r so caught up in how they do things, ie securing an IV, that they step on another colleagues toes just to impose their "standard". I've come to learn that there are many ways to get from a to b, as long as the standards of practice are maintained and no harm comes to the patient. What scares me most is that these people with multiple initials after their name feel they have my best interest at heart.

:chuckle One place I worked at was bad about that. There were several nurses who had been there forever and their IV taping way was best. They literally would redress the patient's IV sites every shift because they didn't like the way someone else did it. The patients thought the whole floor of nurses were stupid because the nurses that did this would say "She just doesn't know what she is doing." That was one place that I came and went very quickly. Just couldn't put up with it when the manager condoned it.

dauschundlover · Aug 25, 2008

I'm with u. Nothing damages us as nurses as when one of presents herself or himself as knowing it all. It doesn't take much for a pt. to loose confidence in you as their nurse then when another nurse states or implies that another nure "doesn't know what she's doing". To tell you the truth I don't know how that nurse had the time to redress an IV just because it wasn't done her way. I was just using that as an example but the general idea is to remember we all put out own personal spins on what we do, the right thing to do is to accept that it's not wrong.

ilstu99 · Aug 25, 2008

To all "experienced" nurses. Please help me with this issue. I need to know if I'm being overly sensitive or have I once again been slapped in the face by an organization that promotes itself as having my best interest at heart. When I got home yesterday I found the newest edition of The Maryland Nurse in my mailbox. In need of some light reading a bold statement on the front page caught my eye, "You can't take care of your patient if you don't take care of yourself and your profession." I had to read on only now I wish I hadn't. Tim Porter-OGrady, DM EdD, APRN, FAAN is further quoted as saying "experience is not sufficient for competence." "A nurse with years of experience is experienced in an age that we are now leaving behind." He goes on to profess the wonders of Evidence Based Practice. Now I have to tell you I was so mad at reading this seeing as I am a nurse with 27 years experience that my evening was just about ruined. This statement to me is another reason why I would be so disappointed is my daughter ever came to me and said she wanted to be nurse. Because this is such a blanket statement that those of us with experience have nothing new to offer. Anyway before I continue to vent I'd like to hear from others as to whether my anger was indeed out of place.

I think that the phrase, "experience is not sufficient for competence," is true. It's the same with any other profession. Being around for a long time doesn't equal being a great nurse, cop, engineer, teacher....or anything else. What someone does with their experience is what's important.

It's not enough to say, "Well, I've been here for 30 years." Uh. So?

Now - if a nurse says, "I've been here for 30 years, attended (fill in the blank) conferences, participated in my professional organizations, maintained my certifications, had impact on our p/p along with current trends....." and so on and so forth...that's someone who is going to be an awesome nurse and great resource.

Am I the only person who works with a nurse or two who has been there forever, and is only marginally decent? Who doesn't make any effort to become proficient at the computer applications we use all day long (and graces you with their griping about it every time they have to chart something)? Who hasn't read a professional journal in years....if ever? Who has never been to a professional meeting or taken on a leadership role in their unit? Yes, of course there are odds that they used to do those things, and got so burnt out and bothered that they stopped. The odds are also good that they started out like so many other people who want to just do their jobs with marginal effort and go home.

The article does not say that experience is worthless, or that it's meaningless....just that does not equal competence. Any one thing, IMO, is not enough. It's not enough to say "I've been here 30 years," any more than it's enough to say "Well, I have 2 Master's degrees."

At any rate - all I got out of the snippet was "stay current for the betterment of yourself, your coworkers and your patients." I'm having a hard time finding fault with that thought.

Bumashes, MSN, APRN, NP · Aug 25, 2008

OMG! What a nutbag! Without the experience of my coworkers to keep me afloat, I'd be drowning out there! I've only been an RN for 3 months, and I feel like I know nothing! If a patient was coding in front of me, I could do the basics, but without the more experienced nurses there to point out what's next, that poor patient would be in serious trouble. No way would I ever trade in my wonderfully experienced coworkers for a bunch of ninnies like myself who "saw it done this way in the book once." Wow. He must not really get out and experience much of nursing to be saying things like that.

Edit: On a side note, I do see the logic in ilstu99's statement above mine. The quoted statement does not implicitly state that experience is worthless, just that it doesn't equal being competent. Ilstu99 has a good point there. I guess it depends on the tone of the article as a whole, and I didn't get to read the whole thing, so I guess I can't make that judgement.

towntalker · Aug 25, 2008

people like to write articles which stir everything up but really do not accomplish much as far as being thought provoking

nurses have to learn so much as new things are introduced, they have to have ceus that are required by facilities and bon

to be honest some are more proficient in the nurses specilities that are reflected in the floors where they work but that does not mean that they are only competent in old practices..they are up to date in their own specilities and they are capable of learning to do other specilities if they have to transfer d/t facilities closures or family needs

Beaches10 · Aug 25, 2008

Tim Porter O'Grady tends to run at the mouth a bit. Because he is a "former" nurse (I don't personally consider him one anymore), he tends to run off at the mouth spouting quite a bit of rhetoric about nursing. Gets paid big bucks by hospitals needing magnet or simply a transformation.

If administration would simply listen to the nurses who work for them, they could save alot of money. Case in point is hospitals scheduling inservices for nurses, yet the nurses who would most benefit are working on the unit and can't get away for the inservice. Anybody else have this complaint!!!

EBP is the "new generation" word as it should be. Nurse managers and policy makers still are not listening when you ask "why do we do this?", or "I read this and I think we need to look further into it." Yep, still sizzling on the back burner....

Give Tim a port-a-potty because he certainly has a lot to put in it.

dauschundlover · Aug 25, 2008

Don't get me wrong being in a profession for a long time doesn't make you great at what you do. However, don't make a blanket statement regarding those of us who have been around for so long. If you ask me what makes a person good at what they do is to always ask questions, always be willing to learn, always to admit maybe there is another way of doing something. But a blanket statement regarding experience is wrong. I entered the field of nursing with my eyes open and sometimes have not been very happy at what I've seen. Nurses discounting other nurses, doctor discounting nurses, management discounting nurses. In my experience those with knowledge sometimes choose to humiliate more then enlighten. As far as I can understand Evidence Based Practice is nothing more then not settling for the status quo. To always question Okay fine but what can we do different? What can we do better? Does that really make sense? In my day we called that common sense.

dauschundlover · Aug 25, 2008

Tim Porter O'Grady tends to run at the mouth a bit. Because he is a "former" nurse (I don't personally consider him one anymore), he tends to run off at the mouth spouting quite a bit of rhetoric about nursing. Gets paid big bucks by hospitals needing magnet or simply a transformation.
If administration would simply listen to the nurses who work for them, they could save alot of money. Case in point is hospitals scheduling inservices for nurses, yet the nurses who would most benefit are working on the unit and can't get away for the inservice. Anybody else have this complaint!!!
EBP is the "new generation" word as it should be. Nurse managers and policy makers still are not listening when you ask "why do we do this?", or "I read this and I think we need to look further into it." Yep, still sizzling on the back burner....
Give Tim a port-a-potty because he certainly has a lot to put in it.

OMG I think I met my long lost sister.

ilstu99 · Aug 25, 2008

Don't get me wrong being in a profession for a long time doesn't make you great at what you do.

That was my impression of what the author was saying: experience does not equal competence. That's all.

santhony44, MSN, RN, NP · Aug 25, 2008

There's nothing wrong with evidence-based practice, although as someone else said there's good research and then there's not-so-good research.

I can also understand the concept that some of my experience may not be particularly relevant today- after all, there's not a lot of need to do Clinitest and Acetest urine testing for sliding scale insulin these days.

I think it's a bad idea to discount the value of experience in general, though. It counts a lot in some things, like the development of a good gut instinct, which I'd bet on against anybody's research evidence, any day.

I also really don't think most experienced nurses go stagnant. A few do, but not most.