I thought those words earlier today after reading another thread that started to go sideways because some had an issue with the OP. This seems to be happening frequently; the OP will start a thread with the best of intentions; then someone responds with personal attacks against the OP (and misses the point of the post); then others pile on additional negative posts against the OP,
rendering the thread useless.
I wonder if those who try to debate the poster and not the post do anything to make AN a more welcoming place. Do they share their knowledge or experience with others? What have they done to become a valued member of AN?
I'm sure I'll be criticized for starting this thread. I may even have a few people take shots at me. I'm tough; if I can handle cancer, I can handle criticism from anonymous posters on a forum.
So how have you helped to make AN a positive place where nurses can learn from each other?
Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
I hope I've helped make AN a better, more fun and educational place. Even with the best of intentions, though, you always offend someone and you just cannot fix stupid.
Those of you who know better will realize that with more than 800,000 paying members AN is big business, and has its own form of Press-Gainey. The recent thread on how the Customer Service trend in hospitals is bound to die a slow death (but "bound to" does mean inevitable) because giving everyone what s/he wants in priority to what s/he needs for therapeutic reasons is illustrative.
Sure, you're really going to annoy a diabetic whose "management" consists of two doughnuts instead of four and making up for it by using Splenda instead of sugar when you refuse to give him all the sweets he's come to assume are his way of managing his illness-- it's worked so far, right? (Well, until it didn't.) You're going to make a family angry if you don't give their NPO dad a cheeseburger, or even a glass of water. You will be reported, via Press-Gainey or other rating scheme, for not being unfailingly nice; your employer may warn you verbally or in writing or not be inclined to grant your schedule requests.
So too on AN. You're going to annoy someone whose nursing or work or life experience hasn't yet expanded to include some personal challenges and the consequences of their actions. You're going to make someone's eyes roll with your recommendations. You're going to hurt some people's feelings if you point out the places they could have found their answers without expecting someone to hand it to them. You're going to be reported via that little yellow triangle, anonymously, and you will never know until the similarly-shaped 16,000-pound weight drops off the cliff.
Someday the hospital (probably via pressure from an external entity) will realize that Customer Service isn't working out so well in terms of outcomes. Perhaps most people will deny the idea that giving Dad that bottle of Vlasic pickles didn't have enough salt in it to really make a difference in his CHF the night he went into failure. But sooner or later, truth will out.
So too, but only to a point, on AN. Being unfailingly supportive and not caring enough to correct what will become career-ending knee injuries (in an attempt to help less-experienced practitioners avoid the mistakes we made as youngies) is a lot like helicopter/snowplow parenting toddlers and adolescents. Over-empowered children who are protected from the realities of life (or learn that when inconvenient realities rear their ugly heads, they can be safely discounted and ignored) are not going to be happy ones when they get to the world of work and discover that things are not always going to be going their way and that their opinion isn't the court of last resort. You know what Will Rogers said: "There are three kinds of men: The ones that learn by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves."
The difference is that hospitals, even if privately held, are quasi-public institutions. There are laws against refusing the ambulance or transferring out people who come to your ER because they're uninsured, for example; you can't discharge someone from an LTAC without a safe discharge plan. There are laws about labor relations, work/hour violations, and so forth to protect the employees.
No such things apply on the internet. There is no outside entity to collect stats or even anecdotal reports. We are it. The inevitability of bad patient care or personal outcomes from newer practitioners who didn't like the advice they got from older ones will not come back to bite this forum on the gluteus maximus. So perhaps it really doesn't matter if we are all unicorns farting glitter and rainbows (I learned that terminology here). Perhaps that's all this should be.
But. There are those of us, mainly but not all older ones, who do care, and care passionately, about our profession, the vulnerable people we serve in so many capacities, and the quality of the education our newer practitioners acquire both in school and in the years to follow. We aren't trolls, and we don't mean to be intentionally cruel. But you know what? We've seen this rodeo once or twice or twenty times. We want you to know what we know without, perhaps, suffering the ways we did to learn it. If sometimes we are blunt or caustic or say things someone doesn't want to hear, that's why the god of AN gave us an ignore button*. It's no skin off our noses if you don't want to hear what we have to say. We're just casting our bread upon the waters here. (You can look it up. :) )
Perhaps the number of "likes" amassed by those crusty old bats should count for something, too, perhaps as much as the "reports," in a perfect world. Why did the victim mentality, the "I don't like it!" begin to count for more than anything else (outside of the Bill of Rights)? Is it all about the money, as in the hospitals? No, I'm reasonably certain this isn't going to happen here.
So farewell, my beloved nursing students (with apologies to Esme) with questions on med math and physiology, new grads who are mystified by confusing situations, and people who want to change their focus from bedside to my specialty. For better or worse, it's been good being with you. Good night, and good luck.
* With 800,000+ people here, I'd like to see this feature more prominently disclosed-- perhaps next to the "report" button would be a good place, and keep down everyone's blood pressure...and keep up those ever-valuable Press-Gainey scores.
I hope I've helped make AN a better, more fun and educational place. Even with the best of intentions, though, you always offend someone and you just cannot fix stupid.
Yes, you have been exceptional to making this forum a place that is elevated above typical internet discourse and I appreciate you. What I LOVE about AN is that I feel a lot of the admin and veteran members, being that they are instructors IRL, are so passionate about teaching that it is so beneficial to come to a place where you can learn even more outside of school (especially when our instructors IRL are so busy with making sure we don't burn down the unit during clinical and some questions and further teaching are pushed by the way side until post-conference when I can't even remember how to speak English let alone what my initial questions were).
Funny, I was just reading a post the other day where a member decided to take pot shots at the OP's intent, and wouldn't let it go. The respondent kept hammering away, and the poor OP kept taking the bait.
Not to say some postings need a wake-up call, but I'm not sure I've ever partaken in any forum where there is so much judgement, self-righteous indignation, and "pile-on's" from a few that spoil what could otherwise be a healthy discussion.
Sometimes, I am insulted and embarrassed by the level of some nurses' need to belittle their colleagues. Seriously.
"So farewell, my beloved nursing students (with apologies to Esme) with questions on med math and physiology, new grads who are mystified by confusing situations, and people who want to change their focus from bedside to my specialty. For better or worse, it's been good being with you. Good night, and good luck.
Yabbut Greenie, you give perfectly reasonable advisement, even if it's not what the OP wants to hear, without being a mindless schmuck about it.
Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
. . .Not to say some postings need a wake-up call, but I'm not sure I've ever partaken in any forum where there is so much judgement, self-righteous indignation, and "pile-on's" from a few that spoil what could otherwise be a healthy discussion.
The pile-ons make me cringe most of the time. When they don't it's usually a long ordeal of the old "why don't you--- yes, but" game involving a member who really never wanted advice in the first place and figured they'd stop by for a quick validation of something they were already certain was correct.
For the unwitting sometimes the pile-on reminds me of an old BC comic where the cave lady hammers away at the poor snake with her club until the snake ends up looking like a fragmented wavy line.
Ruby Vee is the best and also one of a very few who has an entire thread
on this site dedicated to Appreciating Her!
Here is the first post from handyrn:
i don't know if the all nurses gods/godesses will let me post this or not, but i'm gonna try. i really just want to say: thank you ruby vee!
i think we all need to pay attention to ruby vee. her posts are inspirational, educational, and no-nonsense. i am a nurse of about 16 years and cna for 9 years before that, so i am no inexperienced/new grad spring chicken, but i still get so much knowledge from reading ruby's posts! i just think she deserves an extra special kudos for passing on all her wisdom to the rest of us.
Why on earth are you calling me a s******? Really, I have no idea what I did in this post to deserve that kind of hostility.
I really, REALLY doubt that was directed at you. Everyone, let's all take a deep, cleansing breath. Remember what they say about winning arguments on the internet.
I'd like to share a thought shared with me by another nurse that can be helpful in dealing with less than desirable responses to AN posts.
"It starts and ends with me."
You're the one to put the idea out there and someone responds with a personal attack. Fine. You can't change their perspective and surely responding to it isn't fostering any more intelligent conversation, so I say don't acknowledge it, and move on. Sometimes people's negative reactions aren't necessarily in response to what you said, but more how they interpreted it and how it struck a chord in them. Realize that this is not about you, or what you said, and allow space for their feelings without entangling yours.
Hard lesson to learn but it's served me well.
Thank you so much! That's a great little motto and it's coming just in time to help me with some big ol' nasty challenges at work.
Negativity, criticism and blame - you end with me!
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OCNRN63, RN
5,979 Posts
In my mind there's no doubt you have.