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Discussion

Looking for a different perspective

Preface: This story was told to me secondhand, so I can't guarantee that it's 100% accurate nor can I answer many questions beyond what I was told.

I have a friend in a new grad residency program that includes monthly in-services, this month's topic of discussion was nurses eating their young. I personally don't believe that nurses eat their young and I've also never worked for this hospital so I don't know why they thought it was necessary to spend 8 hours discussing the topic. At some point, the moderators asked for some examples that the new grads had experienced.

At this point, a new grad (Nurse A) working in a step down unit began detailing her experience. Drips were run dry (allegedly to the point where non-expired tubing had to be re-primed), electrolyte abnormalities weren't addressed (allegedly the labs came back at 9A, new orders were put in at 10A, and at 8P the patient still hadn't received treatment) and pertinent information was left out of report. At this point a fellow new grad asked if it was possible that the previous nurse had a rough shift, and Nurse A replied that this had happened every shift since she came off orientation (at least one month ago) with at least two patients. The unit also has a very strict 1:3 ratio.

The moderators, who were members of the hospital's education department and had a combined 30 years of experience at this hospital, responded by telling Nurse A that the nurses on her unit were eating their young. They continued saying that what she was experiencing "wasn't that bad" and that "way back when, people used to wait in the parking lot to beat up new nurses!" They told her that there was no reason to talk with her manager and that she just needed to come in expecting that she would have to take care of those issues.

Again, I've never worked at this hospital, but I did do my preceptorship on a step down unit. If a problem like the ones alleged happened one or twice because of a crazy day it wasn't a huge deal, but if it happens every shift there's a bigger problem at hand than "nurses eating their young".

For me, this isn't "nurses eating their young" or lateral violence or anything like that. If the story is 100% true, would this be considered professional neglect?

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    Hahaha, this is rich.

    The NETY and the "lateral violence" issues serve a particular purpose. They keep this whole other side-show going for nurses who don't know better to waste mental and emotional energy on.

    What a perfect distraction. Since, of course, the only ones who can be blamed for such things are other staff nurses.

    So just to be clear, I personally don't think the story you relay here has anything to do with NETY. Not only is it not "not that bad", it's not NETY.

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    I also don't think it has anything to do with NETY, primarily because I don't believe NETY is really a thing, and even if it is it's not nearly as pervasive as some would make it out to be.

    Personally, I think the moderators used the hot button topic of "NETY" as a convenient excuse. Instead of empowering the new grad to examine different reasons and solutions to the issues, they basically shrugged and told her to just let it go.

    I don't think I phrased my question very clearly so I would like to offer a scenario in addition. If a nurse with 10 patients doesn't treat a patient with a high potassium in a timely fashion and the patient has a cardiac event as a result, the nurse is still liable and could face a malpractice/negligence issue. The hospital could also be found liable for not adequately staffing or for providing adequate support. If one of the issues described in the OP resulted in a complication, the nurses and hospital could also be found liable.

    So my question is actually two questions: if a nurse intentionally did or did not perform an intervention to allegedly screw up another nurses shift, would that be considered professional neglect? Also, if the story described in the OP is 100% true, could the moderators' response also be considered professional neglect?

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    I have some trouble believing that nurses would make intentional med errors to make life difficult for another nurse. That would only come back to bite the nurse who was responsible at the time.

    These errors should be incident reported to identify any contributing systems problems or individual nurse practice issues.

    As for lines running dry, why jump to NETY? That could be due to programming the pump to deliver 1000 ml of a 1-liter bag, vs programming it to deliver 975 ml to account for the fluid in the tubing. To jump straight to NETY is a bit extreme.

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    • Author

    Forgive me if I'm being rude, but I just want to clarify that I didn't jump to NETY. I'm not even sure if the nurse who brought up the issue did either, it's possible that she thought it was an odd situation and wanted guidance.

    I also thought it was strange that the moderators jumped straight to NETY. There are dozens of reasons as to why this could be a problem, and I thought it was irresponsible of them to perpetuate the NETY stereotype when that's obviously not what's happening.

    I haven't been a member on AN very long but I have read the discussion boards for about a year, and I've seen a lot of NETY discussion. Most of these discussions usually involve a relatively benign issue being blown up into something bigger, so I was curious if other people would see this as an issue on the other end of the spectrum.

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    Northcarolina - -

    You wrote very clearly in your OP, and we are agreeing with you! At least I know I am. You said it doesn't really sound like NETY and that's what we said too. :)

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    Northcarolina - -

    You wrote very clearly in your OP, and we are agreeing with you! At least I know I am. You said it doesn't really sound like NETY and that's what we said too. :)

    Me too. I was referring to the group mods who jumped to the NETY conclusion.

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    • Author
    Me too. I was referring to the group mods who jumped to the NETY conclusion.

    Northcarolina - -

    You wrote very clearly in your OP, and we are agreeing with you! At least I know I am. You said it doesn't really sound like NETY and that's what we said too. :)

    Oops! Sorry and thank you! I know that NETY can be a controversial topic and as a new grad I wanted to make sure I was representing myself properly!

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