Nurse Bully, please protect your young: "Don't eat them"

[Leonardo Del Toro]

I believe nurses are very special individuals. Think about it. They are professionals who take care of others in their dire moments. They patiently heal the putrid wounds of some; calm the fear and hopelessness of others; tolerate ingratitude and hostility daily; endure day after day of toiling around the sick and dying. Is only natural you'll find compassionate and warm hearted beings among nurses. I have been in other professions and the contrast is clear to me.

But because nursing is a tough job; some of us develop a thick skin. In a way, is a protection mechanism some develop to survive - you either get tough or you die. Although there is nothing wrong with being tough, some nurses can become quite aggressive and hostile to other nurses. We all have met them at some point, I surely did. But even being aggressive and assertive, nurses cannot match the aggressiveness of some bosses. Oh yes, let's talk about them bosses.

But bosses are people too. Yes, there are reasons why nurse bosses are sometimes so bossy. But bosses also have their though fights to fight. They too must develop an even tougher skin to survive the trials and tribulations of health care. Sometimes bosses are just nurses who left the floor because they simply couldn't take it anymore. Then to find even more stress in management.

Nurses are usually between a rock and a hard place. They have lots of responsibility, but lack the power to make decisions on their own. Doctors have much more say so in regards to their professional lay out. They call the shots, they can fire patients and are respected by most. Nurses on the other hand need to make decisions but always filtered by a set of rules created by others. Nurses must endure whatever BS is thrown at them. If you have an abusive patient, all you can do is to write a note and hope for the best. Most nurses can't simply fire a patient or they'll get fired.

Nurses run the show but are told how things should run. Often by someone who is deciding for them from an office chair; people who never worked on a floor or have not worked in years and can't remember anything. So, nurses are in a pressure cooker situation. Pressure from all sides and not an outlet in sight.

Well actually there is: and that is to relief the pressure on the least dangerous and inconsequential outlet - the young and vulnerable ones. The perplexed and scared nurslings are the recipient of a lot of pent-up anger. But why older nurses engage in this predatory and coward behavior?

It must be their inability to change the system and claim their power. Their extreme frustration lead them to eat their young. The ones they should be nourishing, protecting and grooming to take nursing to the next level just got eaten for lunch. Just like scared animals - they step on their own eggs. This is unfortunate.

If young nurses were well groomed and nurtured they would be the ones able to take nursing to the next level. Instead nurses create a culture of perpetuating the errors inflicted in them by transferring it to the young.

Protecting the young

Again, if you want to bully someone bully the oppressor and not the oppressed. Bully your problems and not the people who are here to learn. The bully energy is good energy but wasted and pointed in the wrong direction.

The alternative to bullying is to preserve and protect the young: because teaching the young the right ways is the only viable way to change nursing culture. It changes things because the young always will change the world. But instead we teach them the culture of bullying. We create perfect students in the art of bullying others. Nothing changes.

So, Mr. Bully next time you decide to torture the young, think of why you went into nursing back in the day. Bullying the young will only perpetuate the culture of abusiveness you were ounce, and continues to be a victim of.

[Susie2310]

Perhaps I have oversimplied it, yet I was not aware that our jobs were broken down as such so that we are paid per task. In most nursing job descriptions, there is a line "and all other duties assigned". One could argue that training and precepting fall under this clause. I was certainly never paid specifically to empty the trash, clean up a spilled drink, or help a family member connect to the wireless internet in the hospital room, yet I have done this and more as "all other duties assigned".

Our school of nursing has an affiliation with an area hospital, so it is expected from the nurses by administration that they participate in the training and precepting of students. Just an FYI...there are systems in place that provide training...as well as a stipend to nurses who are preceptors. Perhaps these places are more to the liking of those who feel training students and new nurses is a burden.

I think my issue is that we were ALL novices at some point. How were you treated by the nurses as a student, new graduate, or simply a nurse in a new environment?

Maybe money is a motivator to some nurses. I have always looked at it as an opportunity to better my profession. For me, I am satisfied in knowing that I had a hand in the training of a nurse who may be caring for me or one of my loved ones, or who may be my supervisor some day. Think about it before you refuse to precept. You never know when it might be YOU in the bed, or this young, aspiring, and movitaved nurse may end up as your nurse manager. Everything comes back around to us. I believe it is referred to as Karma....

Why has the role of the clinical instructor changed so that he/she does not have the responsibility for directly supervising students clinical experiences? When I was a student over 20 years ago, our clinical instructor supervised and taught us during hospital clinicals. The nursing staff were not responsible for providing our clinical experience until we did our preceptorship in our final semester. If this is due to the schools of nursing/colleges not being willing to hire sufficient faculty I wish we could see an admission of this. Nursing students pay a lot of money to their nursing schools/colleges to be taught how to practice as a nurse.

[SmilingBluEyes]

In majority of the hospitals I worked (4 of 5) the instructors were nowhere to be found or on different floors. In one of them, the instructor was always in the breakroom, on her cell phone or grading papers, not at all engaged with her students on the floor. They literally dumped the students on us to do the work of watching/teaching them. I really resented that as we were not compensated and yet we should not have been held responsible for their learning experiences, nor liable if they made errors. My day was difficult enough without the added burden of a student following me around everywhere without the resource of an instructor, who IS paid, available. Personally I did not let them touch my patients; they were only allowed to observe what I did for that reason.

[Spidey's mom, ADN, BSN, RN]

Why has the role of the clinical instructor changed so that he/she does not have the responsibility for directly supervising students clinical experiences? When I was a student over 20 years ago, our clinical instructor supervised and taught us during hospital clinicals. The nursing staff were not responsible for providing our clinical experience until we did our preceptorship in our final semester. If this is due to the schools of nursing not being willing to hire sufficient faculty I wish we could see an admission of this. Nursing students pay a lot of money to their nursing schools/colleges to be taught how to practice as a nurse.

This is a very good point. I became a nurse almost 20 years ago and it WAS the clinical instructor who oversaw our experiences and did most of the teaching. We did follow a nurse but the instructor was the teacher.

[SmilingBluEyes]

I have to give kudos to my instructors in my nursing school. They were always there with us in clinicals. Always around, always watching (which was intimidating at times, I admit) and the staff were never held responsible, nor were burdened by, our presence on the units. This was in the mid 1990s.

[TNBSNFaculty]

It is not the floor nurses responsibility to do the job which YOU are being paid to do.

Lol, trust me, YOU are not doing the job I am being paid to do; however, if you are a nurse, I have done the job you are doing and I did it for 30 years full-time. You have one student following you around to see how you organize your care, assess patients, pass meds, use SBAR, and document. I have 77 students in the classroom setting, from all different generations, who learn in all different ways, who must be "edutained" in order to engage. I am trying to help them make the connection between didactic and clinical... all the while trying to teach them the right way of caring for patients. I teach in both the classroom and the clinical setting, I pass meds with all my clinical students, and I do a complete head-to-toe assessment (not a listen-to-one spot-to-see-if-the-heart-is-beating and-two-anterior-spots-to-see-if there-is-air-moving). All the while trying to explain why nurses aren't "scrubbing the hub" and washing their hands...

While I am not saying this is true of your particular practice, my students see nurses taking dangerous short cuts during their clinical experiences. I have to remind them that they decide every day what kind of nurse they are going to be. Perhaps some nurses don't want students because they are threatening and know what is proper practice vs. dangerous practice.

Many of them have concluded on their own that the nurses who do not want students, do not want them because they are going to be held accountable for the care they provide or the mistakes made by the student. We carry nursing liability on our students.

Sorry, I'm still chuckling over your comment. After all the hours I put in, as much aggrevation as I experience (including text messages, calls, and emails during off school hours), for the small amount of pay I receive, I figure I am paying someone to work, BUT I love what I do and I am not bitter over a career choice that has become my life's passion.

[elkpark]

While I am not saying this is true of your particular practice, my students see nurses taking dangerous short cuts during their clinical experiences. I have to remind them that they decide every day what kind of nurse they are going to be.

All the more reason for you to be providing the clinical education to your students in clinical.

LOL ... (BTW, your condescending snark isn't going to win you many converts here.)

[Wuzzie]

Lol, trust me, YOU are not doing the job I am being paid to do; however, if you are a nurse, I have done the job you are doing and I did it for 30 years full-time. You have one student following you around to see how you organize your care, assess patients, pass meds, use SBAR, and document. I have 77 students in the classroom setting, from all different generations, who learn in all different ways, who must be "edutained" in order to engage. I am trying to help them make the connection between didactic and clinical... all the while trying to teach them the right way of caring for patients. I teach in both the classroom and the clinical setting, I pass meds with all my clinical students, and I do a complete head-to-toe assessment (not a listen-to-one spot-to-see-if-the-heart-is-beating and-two-anterior-spots-to-see-if there-is-air-moving). All the while trying to explain why nurses aren't "scrubbing the hub" and washing their hands...

While I am not saying this is true of your particular practice, my students see nurses taking dangerous short cuts during their clinical experiences. I have to remind them that they decide every day what kind of nurse they are going to be. Perhaps some nurses don't want students because they are threatening and know what is proper practice vs. dangerous practice.

Many of them have concluded on their own that the nurses who do not want students, do not want them because they are going to be held accountable for the care they provide or the mistakes made by the student. We carry nursing liability on our students.

Sorry, I'm still chuckling over your comment. After all the hours I put in, as much aggrevation as I experience (including text messages, calls, and emails during off school hours), for the small amount of pay I receive, I figure I am paying someone to work, BUT I love what I do and I am not bitter over a career choice that has become my life's passion.

If you treat the nursing staff as derisively as you are treating me it's no wonder you have problems with them not wanting to take your students. So happy I could give you a laugh at my expense.

[TNBSNFaculty]

Why has the role of the clinical instructor changed so that he/she does not have the responsibility for directly supervising students clinical experiences? When I was a student over 20 years ago, our clinical instructor supervised and taught us during hospital clinicals. The nursing staff were not responsible for providing our clinical experience until we did our preceptorship in our final semester. If this is due to the schools of nursing/colleges not being willing to hire sufficient faculty I wish we could see an admission of this. Nursing students pay a lot of money to their nursing schools/colleges to be taught how to practice as a nurse.

I truly am sorry if this is your experience with local nursing schools. I DO have the full responsibility of my clinical students. We really try to be a blessing to the nursing staff by answering call lights, ambulating patients, giving meds, and directing questions about practice to ME, not the staff nurse. I never leave the floor (I teach junior students) because I can not trust them not to make an error. I watch them like a hawk. I only want them to observe the nurse. I want to be the one to help them draw blood, put in a foley, pass meds, etc. Maybe my program is the exception, but we are shoulder-to-shoulder with our students until they have their capstone experience in the last semester. Very little of our clinical time is done through simulation (less than 10%). My ratio of instructors to students varies from 1:3 (Fundamentals clinicals and Med-surg I) to 1:5 (Maternal Newborn). We are old-school strict and tough, but we turn out good nurses that health care facilities covet.

For those nurses who share their time, knowledge, and expertise with my students---I am forever grateful to them for helping me develop competent students with critical thinking skills. For those who don't want students with them, thank you for letting me know because I am protective of what is mine. We need nurses (and have since I graduated in 1987) and I don't want them scared off because of the negative comments or actions of a staff nurse.

[SmilingBluEyes]

Lol, trust me, YOU are not doing the job I am being paid to do; however, if you are a nurse, I have done the job you are doing and I did it for 30 years full-time. You have one student following you around to see how you organize your care, assess patients, pass meds, use SBAR, and document. I have 77 students in the classroom setting, from all different generations, who learn in all different ways, who must be "edutained" in order to engage. I am trying to help them make the connection between didactic and clinical... all the while trying to teach them the right way of caring for patients. I teach in both the classroom and the clinical setting, I pass meds with all my clinical students, and I do a complete head-to-toe assessment (not a listen-to-one spot-to-see-if-the-heart-is-beating and-two-anterior-spots-to-see-if there-is-air-moving). All the while trying to explain why nurses aren't "scrubbing the hub" and washing their hands...

While I am not saying this is true of your particular practice, my students see nurses taking dangerous short cuts during their clinical experiences. I have to remind them that they decide every day what kind of nurse they are going to be. Perhaps some nurses don't want students because they are threatening and know what is proper practice vs. dangerous practice.

Many of them have concluded on their own that the nurses who do not want students, do not want them because they are going to be held accountable for the care they provide or the mistakes made by the student. We carry nursing liability on our students.

Sorry, I'm still chuckling over your comment. After all the hours I put in, as much aggrevation as I experience (including text messages, calls, and emails during off school hours), for the small amount of pay I receive, I figure I am paying someone to work, BUT I love what I do and I am not bitter over a career choice that has become my life's passion.

How condescending can you be?

[TNBSNFaculty]

All the more reason for you to be providing the clinical education to your students in clinical.

LOL ... (BTW, your condescending snark isn't going to win you many converts here.)

As stated, I do provide the clinical education to my students. Do not think otherwise until you work with me and my students on your floor. Please understand that all programs and nursing school cultures/philosophies are different.

As for converts, I'm not here to win anyone over to my side or my way of thinking, nor am I here to take the abuse and incivility for all of the nursing schools/instructors you have dealt with in the past. I am happy with my career choices, happy with nursing, and would not ever have chosen anything else. My point of view is what it is--it is mine and I own it. I thought the purpose of a discussion board was to present different points of views, but apparently on here it is not. I'm sorry, I didn't realize I had to stand with the majority and stay silent, all the while reading how nurses don't eat their young. I mistakenly thought I had free speech but didn't realize I would have to dodge stones while expressing it. So sorry I didn't just read and lurk for any longer than I did, but I'm even more remorseful that I wasted my time trying to defend a profession that I love, advocate for students and new graduates, and a career that I am so passionately ready to defend.

Please don't bother to respond. I refuse to be the target of your bitter one-liners. I'm out...

[Wuzzie]

As stated, I do provide the clinical education to my students. Do not think otherwise until you work with me and my students on your floor. Please understand that all programs and nursing school cultures/philosophies are different.

As for converts, I'm not here to win anyone over to my side or my way of thinking, nor am I here to take the abuse and incivility for all of the nursing schools/instructors you have dealt with in the past. I am happy with my career choices, happy with nursing, and would not ever have chosen anything else. My point of view is what it is--it is mine and I own it. I thought the purpose of a discussion board was to present different points of views, but apparently on here it is not. I'm sorry, I didn't realize I had to stand with the majority and stay silent, all the while reading how nurses don't eat their young. I mistakenly thought I had free speech but didn't realize I would have to dodge stones while expressing it. So sorry I didn't just read and lurk for any longer than I did, but I'm even more remorseful that I wasted my time trying to defend a profession that I love, advocate for students and new graduates, and a career that I am so passionately ready to defend.

Please don't bother to respond. I refuse to be the target of your bitter one-liners. I'm out...

Oh for pity's sake. Drama much?

[SmilingBluEyes]

I'm sorry, I didn't realize I had to stand with the majority and stay silent, all the while reading how nurses don't eat their young. I mistakenly thought I had free speech but didn't realize I would have to dodge stones while expressing it. So sorry I didn't just read and lurk for any longer than I did, but I'm even more remorseful that I wasted my time trying to defend a profession that I love, advocate for students and new graduates, and a career that I am so passionately ready to defend.

Please don't bother to respond. I refuse to be the target of your bitter one-liners. I'm out...

So as long as we agree with you, it's all good? And free speech is ok as long as we see it your way. You admit you are "defensive" in your posts......we respond accordingly.

And way to go, getting that old, tired chestnut about "eating our young" in there. No wonder new nurses come out the gate expecting it; instructors teach it in school, still.