This is more a vent, because i had a horrible day at the hospital today. As a nursing student I was assigned to one of the nurses at DEU facility. At 7am I introduced myself and let her know I will be working with her. She looked at me, didn't say anything and left. I literally ran after her. She was getting a report when the patient started complaining how everyone gives her different diagnosis and she can't trust anyone. As soon as we stepped outside of the room (night shift nurse, my nurse and I), PCT informed the nurse that patient wants to talk to the head of the hospital. Charged nurse told my nurse to just talk to the patient again and try to calm her. At the same time, the night nurse told me to stay outside of the room while they are talking inside (so that patient doesn't get even more agitated).
I was standing outside of the room when my nurse open the door and screamed at the top of her lungs "why are you just standing there, my patient tripped and almost fell, what's wrong with you. You should help me."
I made sure patient was ok (she didn't fall, she tripped as she was walking and talking to the nurse) and told my clinical instructor to assign me to another nurse. She said "yeah, we had the problem with this nurse before" and she reassigned me.
Towards the end of my shift, I overheard charge nurse talking to the mean nurse. She informed her that medical director complained that she never smile or talk. I was thinking "ok, but screaming on top of her lungs in front of the patient and patient's family at 7am is ok?" I was just buffled that no one cared, it seems like some nurses can act any way they want and professionalism is something some nurses forgot and they still can get away with it.
Thanks God I am not planning on being a nurse for too long... Especially not after witnessing this ridiculous pettiness in nursing. And honestly, I am thankful this all happened 5 min after the shift started because I saw her attitude and knew it was going to be a miserable day. While she was getting a report (before the issue with the patient) she acted like I didn't exist and like i am some inferior species comparing to her all-mighty nurse status.
She probably won't but I do hope she gets fired soon so she has some time to reflect and learn some self-control, stress management and how to not be mean and ****** just because her life sucks.
Pot meet kettle!
You're mad at the nurse cause she had a bad day, was given the duty of handling a patient and situation out of her scope of practice, and had an entitled nursing student who's hateful. Yes, you are completely hateful and you get more nasty with each post.
It appears as though you are projecting your feelings of rejection from the breakup with your boyfriend onto the nurse. She was put in an impossible position because any slight and you would have magnified it. Your boyfriend fired you because your behavior was similar to the nurse's behavior. So because you were fired, you want her to be fired too.
Maybe you don't need to be a nurse because you will have management and patients who are 10x worse and some of them even throw things at you. So if you get a patient who throws poop, or a family member who wants to make you suffer because their loved one is hurting and they're lashing out, do you want the hospital to throw them in the streets because you deem they're mean? If you have one of those days will you give your patients the wrong medications because you're distracted and your feelings are hurt because a patient or family member was mean to you?
You're in nursing school and you're an adult, get over yourself. People are mean everyday in some form or fashion, and many times in nursing it's a possibility at any given moment yet it doesn't mean we can make mistakes all day or change patients because we don't like it.
Just as you think her life sucks, yours does too and that's why you want her fired for your own sense of entitlement. You don't have self control either, hence why your boyfriend left. Everything you've assigned to this nurse and her attitude also applies to you. So what's your real gripe here?
I was standing outside of the room when my nurse open the door and screamed at the top of her lungs "why are you just standing there, my patient tripped and almost fell, what's wrong with you. You should help me."
While i understand different "difficult" personalities... I can't justify screaming (not raising her voice, she was screaming with her head in the hallway while her body is still in the patient's room). And screaming at me because the patient almost fell while SHE was in the room. Patient's son was in the room as well and in disbelief...
Hi OP! I noticed from one of your previous posts that you are over thirty years old, so while it's true that you are still a nursing student, you are old enough to have some life experience. Now that some time has passed since the incident you've described in your post took place and you've hopefully regained your emotional equilibrium, what are your thoughts when reading the above two quotes? You see, to me this doesn't sound like the behavior of someone who is merely being rude or "disrespecting" a student. To me it sounds like someone who is on the verge of an emotional breakdown. She clearly wasn't coping well dealing with the upset patient and the patient's fall seems to have rattled her and elicited an disproportionate response compared to what was warranted.
You seem to primarily be looking at her behavior through a lens of how it affected your feelings. Look, I understand. That's normal. It's not fun being yelled at, especially when you haven't done anything wrong. She obviously shouldn't have screamed at you, it was completely unacceptable behavior. That said, look at the bigger picture. Her being clearly agitated and screaming at the top of her lungs at 7am can't have passed unnoticed by the rest of the floor. If the other patients heard and realized it was a member of staff, it can't made them feel safe and confident about the professionalism of their carers. Did you ask yourself if the nurse's noticable agitation might have impacted her ability to make sound decisions? (For the complaining patient and for the nurses' other patients?)
If I had been in your situation, my primary concern would have been if the other nurse was sufficiently emotionally balanced to safely care for her patients and I would have tried to talk to her to see if there was something I could do to get her on a more even keel. I realize that you're still a student and this wouldn't have been your place to do, I simply point this out for future reference in an attempt to direct your focus away from how her actions made you feel, and towards the possible patient-related implications of her mercurial behavior.
I am just sick of everyone defending this unprofessionalism. Being busy is not an excuse, handle it as an adult.
Oh, and to ad that she ruined my day. I was shook for the rest of the day, and even though i have administered insulin 100 times by now, i couldn't get the dosage right throughout the shift.
Stress; be it hostile work environments or even stress of a more benign nature can negatively affect our concentration and ability to logically analyze and process things. If a person is behaving in an unacceptable manner towards a coworker , of course it's the responsibility of the person misbehaving. Not the person who is being treated poorly. BUT! and this is important; since we will never be able to eliminate 100% of stress in our lives (whether it's from our private or professional lives), we need to figure out a strategy to minimize the risk of making mistakes when we are under stress.
This responsibility is of course a shared one; in a safety-conscious organization both the individual employees and the employer have to take active measures to minimize mistakes being made. This is vital in the medical field. You need to figure out a way to cope with your stress, because this was not the last time you will experience stress at work. And once you graduate you won't have an instructor looking over your shoulder who will notice when you draw up an incorrect dose. You will ONLY have coworkers who will HOPEFULLY notice that you seem a bit off-kilter one day and who can react in an appropriate and supportive manner.
I think that JKL33 and FolksBtrippin, among others, have given you excellent advice and I'm quoting the parts relevant to your near misses, the insuline med errors, below:
Hello FutureNurse -
I think you had an excellent educational experience today. You're not going to forget this any time soon. The most productive thing you can do is analyze the situation you witnessed and incorporate its useful lessons into your future practice.
Lesson #4: You sort of/almost did the exact same thing your nurse did, which was to become completely agitated by taking personally a situation that had nothing to do with you. If someone acts like a lunatic and screeches at you for something having utterly nothing to do with you - - you have to be able to quickly categorize that as something which is not worth you getting agitated over, especially to the point that your concentration and/or ability to do your job is negatively affected.
When you drew up the 8 units, your instructor corrected you without emotion, right? She was in a good place at the time and able to be objective. That was helpful to you in noticing that your emotional distress was affecting your attention. Next step is to improve yourself. How can you prevent this error in the future? What will you do next time you are feeling stressed while drawing up a med to prevent errors? It will definitely happen again. Learning ways to cope is important because total control over your social environment is impossible. There will be many more people acting badly at work in your future. Hospitals are high stress environments.
OP,
You control yourself. You influence others by and through your self control.
In the scenario below; I think that nurseI56's advice is also spot on.
She was getting a report when the patient started complaining how everyone gives her different diagnosis and she can't trust anyone. As soon as we stepped outside of the room (night shift nurse, my nurse and I), PCT informed the nurse that patient wants to talk to the head of the hospital. Charged nurse told my nurse to just talk to the patient again and try to calm her. At the same time, the night nurse told me to stay outside of the room while they are talking inside (so that patient doesn't get even more agitated).
Sometimes you can de-escalate a situation by responding to the content rather than the tone of voice that has you so upset. In this case, calmly answering something like "I wasn't in the room because the night nurse told me to stay outside" will be very effective.
NurseI56 is in my opinion also correct about the following.
Just a general observation as you seem to feel the nurse should face more punitive consequences than she did-- you'll have to let it go. It's between that nurse and her employer, and most likely you'll never know the entirety of reasons for their response.
She probably won't but I do hope she gets fired soon so she has some time to reflect and learn some self-control, stress management and how to not be mean and ****** just because her life sucks.
In my opinion, that's just vindictive and petty. I hope this is just you still steaming/venting and not a genuine reflection of your feelings.
Towards the end of my shift, I overheard charge nurse talking to the mean nurse. She informed her that medical director complained that she never smile or talk. I was thinking "ok, but screaming on top of her lungs in front of the patient and patient's family at 7am is ok?" I was just buffled that no one cared, it seems like some nurses can act any way they want and professionalism is something some nurses forgot and they still can get away with it.
OP, are you in the U.S.? The reason I ask is because I'm not. I'm Scandinavian. Here the medical director is not in a nurse's chain of command (I don't think that they are in the U.S. either?) and if a medical director approached a charge nurse complaining that one of the nurses didn't smile enough, the charge nurse would ask the medical director if s/he had an actual valid complaint about the nurses' professional nursing skills and abilities. Smiling (especially smiling to the medical director) isn't a requirement and I'm not sure what not talking means? A charge nurse would not pass on these complaints to the nurse in question unless it was more substantive and directly affecting the quality of nursing care provided. (On a personal note; I'd be super annoyed if someone complained that I didn't smile enough and I would inform them regarding what I think of that particular complaint).
Thanks God I am not planning on being a nurse for too long... Especially not after witnessing this ridiculous pettiness in nursing. And honestly, I am thankful this all happened 5 min after the shift started because I saw her attitude and knew it was going to be a miserable day. While she was getting a report (before the issue with the patient) she acted like I didn't exist and like i am some inferior species comparing to her all-mighty nurse status.
Why are you going through 2-4 years of training if you don't plan on staying long? Is this a tantrum/defensive reaction to posts that have upset you in this thread? It's human nature to become defensive when we feel like we are under attack or not sufficiently supported.
The nurse shouldn't have screamed at you. She was clearly in the wrong. I'm sorry that you were yelled at, through no fault of your own.
You've in my opinion received a lot of good advice about what you can do if/when this happens again. Advice that will make your nursing career easier (or any career really). Now you have a choice. You can focus on the helpful advice in here or you can choose to become upset about how some of the advice was delivered/worded and the fact that some nurses can identify with some of the things the yelling nurse might have been experiencing. That really is your choice.
She probably won't but I do hope she gets fired soon so she has some time to reflect and learn some self-control, stress management and how to not be mean and ****** just because her life sucks.
How about you hope that she simply transfers to a non DE unit so she can gather her composure and become a better nurse and calmer person without affecting and being affected by the additional responsibilities incumbent with having nursing students?
Your mean attitude doesn't reflect well on you, and quite frankly, makes you seem even more mean than this nurse, because your nasty sentiments are being expressed in a calm moment of reflection vs. her actions in the heat of the moment.
And your comments about "stress management" and "self control" are rather ironic in light of your own admissions about your inability to practice safe care while feeling stressed and disrespected.
All in all, I think you need some self reflection every bit as much as the nurse you have described...
There doesn't seem to be much benefit to coming to this forum to vent or to seek opinions about an experience involving behaviors and personalities.
Responses to this type of post tend to spiral away from what is stated as people draw from their own experiences in the workplace to interpret what the issues are. The OP will invariably be mischaracterized and assigned motives that may or may not be accurate, and people pile on the attacks almost as if it is an opportunity to work out issues they've been unable to resolve in their personal or work lives.
It's baffling to me when I see judgments being made on the person seeking a place to vent or gather helpful advice, when I have interpreted the situation so differently. Obviously we each have our own experiences that lead us to "see" differently what is being communicated.
The problem here is that none of us know the OP. None of us know what is going on in that unit, and since we know that people can usually tell just one side of the story, we read between the lines and fill in the big picture based on our own experiences. You can be pretty sure there is more to the story most of the time, but when people start filling in the blanks and reinterpreting what has been stated, well, it often just ends up being hurtful.
My advice is to not vent here.... you will spend way too much time, energy and effort defending yourself, clarifying motives, intent etc. only to come away feeling misinterpreted and very likely beat down. There really is no way to draw an accurate picture of who you are in order to get a sympathetic ear or some sound advice from people who have never met you. Instead, go to someone IRL who knows you well, or knows the situation you are in, and can give honest helpful advice or maybe just be a listening ear...NOT to strangers on the internet.
DEU is a hospital (or a certain floor) where nurses get extra money to have students and teach them.
Oh darling I assure you we do NOT get extra money for our DEU time. We don't get a choice to even do it. You just get assigned. Until you walk in this nurses shoes you should stop judging. If you're so offended by this nurse yelling (I don't condone but totally understand) you're going to love some doctors who take great pride dressing you down in front of patients, families and your co-workers. I had clinical with a very cold nurse. Today I work with her. I didn't let her attitude affect me. Now that I work with her I can see she provides better patient care than ANY nurse on our floor. Her attitude is still poor but I'll take 10 of her over any perky nurse who can't see her patient is about to crash.
Specializes in Med/Surg/Infection Control/Geriatrics.
Ok ... so you were assigned to a nurse who wasn't very "student friendly" ... and so you asked for a different assignment ... and your assignment got switched. Lucky you! You got what you asked for. Not every student would be so lucky. You should be happy about that.
Then ... later ... the nurse you thought needed to be reprimanded, got reprimanded. And you are complaining about that -- that the reprimand was not significant enough in your eyes. Again, you got what you wished for and are complaining because it still wasn't good enough for you.
I don't see why you are saying you had a tough day. It seems like you got everything you wanted.
Perhaps instead of complaining, you should be analyzing the situation. Why is this nurse so unpleasant. She is probably in some emotional pain. Maybe some help and support. She came to work and was given a patient already angry enough to want to speak to the head of the hospital -- for reasons that had nothing to do with her -- and was given a student on top of it. Then she got reprimanded in PUBLIC for not smiling enough. She's the one who really had a bad day. My heart goes out to her.
I agree with you that she should have some compassion for the nurse, however, this is a student who is very new in this medical world and finding her way.
Of course she is going to misinterpret some things, but let's not berate her further. She's coming to us for support, not criticism. While we don't necessarily have to agree with her, we can give her some kind guidance.
I too, as a student, have had some nasty run-ins with seasoned nurses. At first, I too thought that they just had a bad attitude. But as the years went by, I began to get a taste of possibilities that may have contributed to the attitude. Perhaps she will discover this as time goes by and develop some healthier ways of dealing with it.
DEU is a hospital (or a certain floor) where nurses get extra money to have students and teach them.
In this case is it the entire hospital or just this particular unit? Any chance this nurse was pulled to this unit? Just curious, as this can put nurses in negative mood faster than anything.
Specializes in Psych, Corrections, Med-Surg, Ambulatory.
I agree with you that she should have some compassion for the nurse, however, this is a student who is very new in this medical world and finding her way.
Of course she is going to misinterpret some things, but let's not berate her further. She's coming to us for support, not criticism. While we don't necessarily have to agree with her, we can give her some kind guidance.
I too, as a student, have had some nasty run-ins with seasoned nurses. At first, I too thought that they just had a bad attitude. But as the years went by, I began to get a taste of possibilities that may have contributed to the attitude. Perhaps she will discover this as time goes by and develop some healthier ways of dealing with it.
No one was unsympathetic to the OP's crappy day. But she couldn't see past herself which made her experience worse. Many people came on and tried to help her find a way to process the situation so that she would feel less personally victimized.
We've all responded to similar threads here in the past. They go something like this: "I had a horrible experience. Didn't anyone realize how it was affecting ME? Now you're all being mean to me too. You're all HORRIBLE nurses!"
We gamely try to present some reason and sanity to help OP get the perspective she needs to get over what was understandably an unsettling day. But anything other than complete alignment with OP's self-absorbed point of view gets met with frank hostility and posts that get downright nasty. No, we don't know her but we're getting to know her. We've dealt with many like her, online and off.
We don't know why she's not planning to be a nurse for very long, but at this point we're thinking it's probably for the best.
Specializes in Psych, Corrections, Med-Surg, Ambulatory.
Just an observation...
My advice is to not vent here.... you will spend way too much time, energy and effort defending yourself, clarifying motives, intent etc. only to come away feeling misinterpreted and very likely beat down. There really is no way to draw an accurate picture of who you are in order to get a sympathetic ear or some sound advice from people who have never met you. Instead, go to someone IRL who knows you well, or knows the situation you are in, and can give honest helpful advice or maybe just be a listening ear...NOT to strangers on the internet.
You're right. If what you want is unmitigated sympathy, that's what your friends are for. They don't know the whole story and they don't need to. They're YOUR friends and can be completely there for you.
Strangers on the internet who happen to be nurses just aren't going to see things the same way. Yes, we are filling in the picture with our own experiences; when you come on to this website, that's what you get. A whole lot of people with a whole lot of experience.
You decide what you're looking for: years of experience from nurses on the internet, or tea and sympathy from your friends. Your friends can help you feel nurtured in the moment. Internet nurses are trying to help you manage the rest of your career. You can choose either, both or neither.
Attibuting this nurse's behavior due to a bad is why we have bullying in nursing, as we condone this behavior. Stop making excuses to why this nurse treated this student like crap. Every single one of you have been in the place of the student once, yet act as if you have forgotten this. Ignoring a student is passive aggressive behavior. Screaming at the student is inappropriate. Perhaps the "not smiling reprimand" is a key sign to a major potential problem; burn out is more than likely occurring, but that does not mean it is okay to behave like this.
Thanks God I am not planning on being a nurse for too long... Especially not after witnessing this ridiculous pettiness in nursing. And honestly, I am thankful this all happened 5 min after the shift started because I saw her attitude and knew it was going to be a miserable day. While she was getting a report (before the issue with the patient) she acted like I didn't exist and like i am some inferior species comparing to her all-mighty nurse status.
She probably won't but I do hope she gets fired soon so she has some time to reflect and learn some self-control, stress management and how to not be mean and ****** just because her life sucks.
OK I am usually very nice but I am going to be honest you sound very entitled and snotty. You have no idea what is going on with this woman. Her mom could be struggling with cancer, her husband could be abusive, she could have a sick child etc. How do you handle conflict in your personal life? SO she is rude to you...Yes that sucks and is unprofessional but its like now you have a nasty chip on your shoulder about it. Let it go, move on. If this is the worst you ever encounter consider yourself lucky...What are you going to do the first time a patient calls you a stupid B**** and throws their water pitcher at you and screams at you that you are horrible? Or the patient that decides they hate you for no reason and spends all shift yelling and degrading you. Because it happens. We are human we have bad days. You seem just really stuck on something that you need to let go. She was spoken to about her attitude. Let it go. Also if you walk in with that " thank god I'm not going to be a nurse for long because they are so petty" you are not going to be very successful. Nursing is a teamwork job. You are new and not even a nurse yet. Get some humility and a thicker skin.
How about you hope that she simply transfers to a non DE unit so she can gather her composure and become a better nurse and calmer person without affecting and being affected by the additional responsibilities incumbent with having nursing students?
Your mean attitude doesn't reflect well on you, and quite frankly, makes you seem even more mean than this nurse, because your nasty sentiments are being expressed in a calm moment of reflection vs. her actions in the heat of the moment.
And your comments about "stress management" and "self control" are rather ironic in light of your own admissions about your inability to practice safe care while feeling stressed and disrespected.
All in all, I think you need some self reflection every bit as much as the nurse you have described...
This exactly. This is what I was trying to say with my previous response. OP you are very stuck on this situation to the point you are seething and cant let go and just want something bad to happen to her. (get fired). You are coming off very mean in your responses OP. Just saying.
NurseBlaq
1,756 Posts
Pot meet kettle!
You're mad at the nurse cause she had a bad day, was given the duty of handling a patient and situation out of her scope of practice, and had an entitled nursing student who's hateful. Yes, you are completely hateful and you get more nasty with each post.
It appears as though you are projecting your feelings of rejection from the breakup with your boyfriend onto the nurse. She was put in an impossible position because any slight and you would have magnified it. Your boyfriend fired you because your behavior was similar to the nurse's behavior. So because you were fired, you want her to be fired too.
Maybe you don't need to be a nurse because you will have management and patients who are 10x worse and some of them even throw things at you. So if you get a patient who throws poop, or a family member who wants to make you suffer because their loved one is hurting and they're lashing out, do you want the hospital to throw them in the streets because you deem they're mean? If you have one of those days will you give your patients the wrong medications because you're distracted and your feelings are hurt because a patient or family member was mean to you?
You're in nursing school and you're an adult, get over yourself. People are mean everyday in some form or fashion, and many times in nursing it's a possibility at any given moment yet it doesn't mean we can make mistakes all day or change patients because we don't like it.
Just as you think her life sucks, yours does too and that's why you want her fired for your own sense of entitlement. You don't have self control either, hence why your boyfriend left. Everything you've assigned to this nurse and her attitude also applies to you. So what's your real gripe here?