Love nursing hate nurses...what to do?

jadelpn, LPN, EMT-B · Aug 5, 2011

Hate is a pretty strong word. As you have a preceptor, that should be who you need to ask questions to, as that person should be your resource person. Otherwise, your charge nurse. Also, familiarize yourself to the clinical resources you have available to look stuff up. It is frustrating. But you should become aware of what you know, and more acutely aware of what you don't know and the process you need to take to learn it. It takes time to gain experience but use all of the resources you can yourself to gain clinical experience.

Ruby Vee, BSN · Aug 5, 2011

i guess i'd have to wonder what kind of questions you're asking. are they questions you could easily look up the answers to yourself? are you asking the same questions over and over? do you know what resources are available to you to find answers? are you studying at home or are you expecting your preceptor to spoon feed you all of the answers?

Armygirl7 · Aug 6, 2011

If EVERYONE (even nurses in other departments!) is so horrible then you have an E/R mismatch! Expectation/Reality.

If I keep expecting different behavior and refuse to accept the reality then I am setting myself up for a boatload of frustration and misery.

Have you tried confronting the issue? Choose the least, or maybe the most offensive colleague and take them aside and say "Hey I am feeling XYZ (attacked, belittled, humiliated, unsupported) every time I ask a question on this unit. Is there some method of communicating that I am just not hip to yet, or can you give me some specific advice? I want to give excellent patient care and be a good colleague and I seem to be getting off on the wrong foot!"

I have found that if every single person around me is hostile then I need to assess if I have to alter my expectations or methods in order to cope w/ the situation or if indeed the entire staff is just toxic then I need to think about my mental health and maybe moving on!

DolceVita, ADN, BSN, RN · Aug 6, 2011

I don't know all of the ins and outs of your deal. What I can tell you is this -- if you truly have these feelings towards your colleagues, and it seems like you do for ALL of them, they will sense it from you. That won't help.

BTW feelings aren't fact.

I would not tell a colleague that you feel ____ (fill in) by everyone. You will sound paranoid and people do not need to know how you feel. Meet with your preceptor and ask him/her if your approach to your colleagues is appropriate and professional. If she hasn't observed you then ask her to do so. You can mention that you sense some frustration from "a couple" of the nurses and you want to make sure that you are getting off on the right foot. Listen to what she says and ask her what she thinks will help. Then try it.

If your preceptor sucks at managing and conflict find another person outside the unit/hospital who can mentor you through this.

I know this sounds like I am pointing the finger back at you. Please take heart. Entering the healthiest of established teams is hard. If this team is not healthy and well managed it will be worse. Sometime you have to lower your expectations briefly to make the end game.

Also Ruby Vee gave some great advice. If you aren't doing that already...start now.

amarilla, RN · Aug 6, 2011

I have found that if every single person around me is hostile then I need to assess if I have to alter my expectations or methods in order to cope w/ the situation or if indeed the entire staff is just toxic then I need to think about my mental health and maybe moving on!

This. I posted about this same issue recently and if, after your reassessment, the OP finds that people seem unusually high-strung, snotty or miserable...

you may have arrived at the dead zone. There are floors that give off the smell of unhappiness and I think we've all encountered them. So many nurses refused to float to my floor that they changed the availability/call policy so we can cover our own call-outs, (as no other floor will cover us. Not one.) When you call another department from my floor, your call might not even be answered! Our staffing grid is full of 'ghosts'....all those new people we were encouraged to welcome that spent 1-4 shifts on the floor and gracefully faded out of sight by the next schedule. :uhoh3: It happens sometimes that it might not be *everyone*, but darn close.

OP, decide quickly whether you can hang in there. I stayed on my floor because I learned fairly quickly that (1) getting another hospital job in my area with less than 1 year experience would be nearly impossible, (2) I could manage to do my job (mostly) on my own and push hard enough for my patients when I needed something done. It's probably made me a stronger nurse but I won't lie; it's a lonely learning process, for sure.

Good luck no matter your decision.

Kristy02_RN · Aug 6, 2011

I try to not ask obvious questions or questions I can just look up myself. an Example of a question I asked was I had a patient that had been hounding me all day to know if we would change her only IV push medication to PO so she didn't have to have an IV anymore. I didn't know if her doctor came up, and on this floor only the charge nurse asks the doctor questions like that or pages him or w/e needs to be done. so I asked the charge if she had talked to him about it. and she just snapped on me and said "YOU WANT ME TO CALL HIM?!?! I'M NOT CALLING A DOCTOR TO HAVE THE ROUTE OF A DRUGE CHANGED!! WE DON'T DO THAT HERE." I kindly told her I wasn't asking her to call and that I was asking her to tell me if she had spoken to him yet, because the patient has asked me multiple times. and she says "well I'M just telling you how it works! I'm not going to call or bother a doctor with that!!" and I said "well what should I tell the patient?" she told me "I don't care" I never asked her to call him, I just wanted an answer for my patient! Another incident was with a PCA pump, my preceptor had the day off so I was with another nurse. We were working together and I was having my FIRST EVER experience with a PCA pump. In school we weren't allowed to take a patient that had one. so I was trying to put the syringe in, I was going a little slow and struggling, but the other nurse was right there helping me. well the charge who had the key snatches the syringe from me and puts it in. the other nurse says "I wanted HER to do it!" and the charge says "WELL SHE DIDN'T KNOW WHAT SHE WAS DOING!!" and the nurse said "YES that's why I wanted HER to do it!" and the charge says "WELL it's done now isn't it?" locks the pump and walks away.

When I have a nursing question or a question about where to find something I ask my preceptor. I've never worked in this facility before I took this job and the other new nurses did all of their clinical rotations there, they have a huge leg up on me! When I have to take a pt to a procedure I have to ask for directions because I don't know where I'm going a lot of the time, I'm slowly learning my way around but it takes time. I don't bother another nurse with anything other than verifying my insulin (which I get attitude about)

My boyfriend says I need to stick up for myself more because I have a timid personality that's just begging people to treat me badly because they know they'll get away with it. I'll try to combine all of your wonderful advice with a little bit of his. I really do appreciate all of you taking the time to answer me.

Hate is a strong word, I should've said "strongly dislike at this time" Some of this is just me being stressed out about being a new nurse, I'm sure of it. I'm on days and I know the day shift has a lot of seasoned nurses that have a tendency to be less patient with newbies. I guess it will just take time, practice and a positive attitude! I tell myself everyday that today is a new day and it will be great; I always go in with a smile on my face.

Kristy02_RN · Aug 6, 2011

i guess i'd have to wonder what kind of questions you're asking. are they questions you could easily look up the answers to yourself? are you asking the same questions over and over? do you know what resources are available to you to find answers? are you studying at home or are you expecting your preceptor to spoon feed you all of the answers?

i do know some of what is available to me, i read information that i'm not sure about, or ask my preceptor to direct me to the proper resource. i never just expect information to be given to me because we were expected to look for ourselves in nursing school. i will take the time to step back and asses my questions more before i ask from now on though, thank you very much for your advice and time! i really do appreciate it. everything that everyone has said has given me a lot of ideas about how i can make this work out better.

dudette10, MSN, RN · Aug 6, 2011

I try to not ask obvious questions or questions I can just look up myself. an Example of a question I asked was I had a patient that had been hounding me all day to know if we would change her only IV push medication to PO so she didn't have to have an IV anymore. I didn't know if her doctor came up, and on this floor only the charge nurse asks the doctor questions like that or pages him or w/e needs to be done. so I asked the charge if she had talked to him about it. and she just snapped on me and said "YOU WANT ME TO CALL HIM?!?! I'M NOT CALLING A DOCTOR TO HAVE THE ROUTE OF A DRUGE CHANGED!! WE DON'T DO THAT HERE." I kindly told her I wasn't asking her to call and that I was asking her to tell me if she had spoken to him yet, because the patient has asked me multiple times. and she says "well I'M just telling you how it works! I'm not going to call or bother a doctor with that!!" and I said "well what should I tell the patient?" she told me "I don't care" I never asked her to call him, I just wanted an answer for my patient! Another incident was with a PCA pump, my preceptor had the day off so I was with another nurse. We were working together and I was having my FIRST EVER experience with a PCA pump. In school we weren't allowed to take a patient that had one. so I was trying to put the syringe in, I was going a little slow and struggling, but the other nurse was right there helping me. well the charge who had the key snatches the syringe from me and puts it in. the other nurse says "I wanted HER to do it!" and the charge says "WELL SHE DIDN'T KNOW WHAT SHE WAS DOING!!" and the nurse said "YES that's why I wanted HER to do it!" and the charge says "WELL it's done now isn't it?" locks the pump and walks away.

The charge needs to get her panties out of her butt.

xtxrn, ASN, RN · Aug 7, 2011

The charge needs to get her panties out of her butt.

Absolutely uncalled for. You had legitimate questions and new experiences. She should never have talked to you that way. PCA pumps are something you need to know, and obviously were trying.

Do the other nurses have comments about the charge nurse? DO NOT ask them (don't know how buddy-buddy they are :bdyhdclp: so you don't want to open that can of worms)... but listen. You may hear them expressing some of the frustrations you have- and that can help you at least feel that it's not about you (with people who act like she did, it's generally ALL about how miserable she is as a person, and unfortunately, you get the brunt of it).

If nothing gets better, you can always check with HR and see what other positions are open, so you could transfer in-house, and not lose any of the benefit time (even a little can mean something, especially with when insurance kicks in).

I think most of us have worked with our share of the evil, possessed monster nurses...and they can make things totally miserable... but try and remember, if she's just a snarky person, it's not you :) ((((((Kristy))))))

SydneyJo1 · Aug 7, 2011

Wow, that is horrible! I can understand your frustration. I would agree with your boyfriend--you probably do need to show this charge nurse that you have some backbone. I know that is easier said than done considering the fact that you are new. If she ever does this again, maybe just calmly saying "There's no need to speak to me this way. I am asking a valid question" might help. She may just continue to act like a spaz, but at least calling her on her ridiculous behavior may make her think twice about treating you this way. She sounds awful!