Most of the nurses I speak with are nice. A few are kind of rude, but not enough for me to really care.
Today, the ED was beyond busy. I don't ever expect the nurses to chat with me or anything. I ask them simple questions(Can so-and-so have a visitor?), only when necessary. I also don't expect them to be chipper or anything. Just answer my question as good as you can. That's all I ask.
However, this extended triage nurse was just flat out rude. We (the ED visitor services employee and I) went into the extended triage area to try and locate a patient. This was only after 1 hour, and his family had been up every 15 minutes. They really wanted to know where he was or what was going on. Understandable.
Typically, patients don't get visitors in the extended triage. We wait until they get a room. But considering how busy we were, there was a good chance they weren't getting a room. Their triage room was going to be there room. So the nurses had been letting us bring visitors.
We never ask a nurse questions when they are with a patient, we wait until they are out of the room. We ask this nurse if they knew where Mr. Jones was. She goes, "What do you mean? Is he in triage? Is he in minor care?" My co-worker states that he was in triage, not minor care. She says, "Well I don't know. Are you sure he isn't in minor care?" She just had this real snarky tone. Just flat out attitude. Condescending and rude. She was clearly talking down to my co-worker as if my co-worker didn't know anything. My co-worker has been there for years. She knows what she is doing. We walked away. I know it's hard to see an attitude through text, but she was just beyond rude and nasty. I don't know how else to put it.
My co-worker is so sweet and beyond polite to this chick. The funny thing is, we were in the room next to this nurse before we asked her the question, and she was so polite to the patient, yet she talks down to us.
So my co-worker says that nurse is like that all the time. What the heck. Isn't there someone she can be reported to? I'm sorry, I just don't think it's acceptable to talk down to a co-worker. Ever. I don't think employees should have to put up with that crap. I don't care that we aren't nurses. We're all on the same team here.
How would you approach someone like that and what would you say to let them know you will not accept their condescending attitude? I think she needs to be approached before being reported. What would you do in this situation? It's obviously going to keep happening. She isn't going anywhere, and neither am I, nor my co-worker. She needs to act like a professional, not a b****.
Nobody is condoning rudeness ....and nobody is condoning abuse.
The OP needs to know the difference between the two and understand the appropriate action to take.
Rudeness ... talk to the nurse, don't tolerate it ...but understand that curtness is sometimes part-and-parcel of working in an extremely busy area. Happens again? ...then maybe good idea to report it
Abuse .... should report. Always unacceptable.
Some nurses IMHO lump all 'negative interaction' into the same box : lateral violence, 'eating our young', bullying.
They are better served by reflecting a little ... asking themselves what actually happened here? Understand the situation before leaping.
After all, all 'negative interactions' in my non-nursing life are not all 'violence' ...the rude lady in the supermarket parking lot who raced into the park I was waiting for was not 'violent' toward me...she was rude.
The visitor who tells me nurses are 'stupid' is not violent....he is rude.
The repairman who spoke to me in a condescending tone was rude ...he didn't 'bully' me.
It is a ridiculous situation to group all 'negative interaction' into the lateral violence category
The situation described by the OP IS lateral violence
In school, I was taught that talking down/belitting others is horizontal workplace violence- I was going to quote my textbook, but I can'tfind it so I will use this article I found instead
The situation described by the OP IS lateral violence
In school, I was taught that talking down/belitting others is horizontal workplace violence- I was going to quote my textbook, but I can'tfind it so I will use this article I found instead
* Punishing activities by management eg. Repeatedly sending someone out of area; bad
rosters; chronic understaffing; lack of concern with mental, emotional, spiritual and
physical health of employees
* Lack of participation in professional organisations (a subtle form of self-hatred) however,
busy family lives can preclude participating in professional organizations
Oh crap...we are all doomed. Come on now...I fail to see any value in stewing in this. If it bothers you that greatly, politely ask her not to speak to you in that manner. If it continues, report it to your supervisor.
Myself... I would cut the person a break initially. I would be a nervous wreck if I let myself get all worked up every time a Dr, nurse, family member, supervisor, patient, CNA, housekeeper, etc, etc, etc did any/all of these things listed above. Heck, I may not even be able to get out of bed in the morning. (According to the list above, I am abused nearly every minute of every working day). Guess I have developed thick skin.
i wasn't there, so i don't know for sure, but it sounds an awful lot as if you're over-reacting.
i have to agree... none of us heard what this er nurse said or how she said it, but we can see right here what pedicurn wrote to you. you characterize pedicurn's posts as "flaming" and "attacks" when they're nothing of the sort. so it's hard not to be a little suspicious that you're being overly sensitive in your interactions with this nurse, or overly dramatic in your account of the incident.
and as another poster said, you don't get to tell people to leave "your" thread (in quotes because it's not really yours). if you decide to post something on a discussion board, you're inviting discussion, whether or not it's what you wanted to hear.
anyway, i encourage you to firmly but professionally (i.e., no swearing or yelling) defend your boundaries if this happens again. maybe you could say something like "i don't appreciate being spoken to like that. i know that you're very busy, but i have a job to do too, and i'm trying to get the information i need to do it. if you can't help me, you can say so without being rude. and if you have any suggestions on how i can find out without asking one of you nurses, i would love to do so."
* Lack of participation in professional organisations (a subtle form of self-hatred) however,
busy family lives can preclude participating in professional organizations
LOL... so if I don't go to union/nurses' association meetings, this is self-hatred, and lateral violence against myself? And hey, there seems to be an implication here that a parent/spouse has a legitimate excuse but a single person's time is less valuable. Whoever wrote this list is committing lateral violence against me.
LOL... so if I don't go to union/nurses' association meetings, this is self-hatred, and lateral violence against myself? And hey, there seems to be an implication here that a parent/spouse has a legitimate excuse but a single person's time is less valuable. Whoever wrote this list is committing lateral violence against me.
Agree ....whoever thinks not going to those meetings is 'self-hatred' and self-inflicted 'lateral violence' is completely cuckoo.
Completely 100% certifiably whacked
This kind of language is PC verbosity in overdrive
I would be a nervous wreck if I let myself get all worked up every time a Dr, nurse, family member, supervisor, patient, CNA, housekeeper, etc, etc, etc did any/all of these things listed above. Heck, I may not even be able to get out of bed in the morning. (According to the list above, I am abused nearly every minute of every working day). Guess I have developed thick skin.
Agree
According to the list (work by graduate student BTW ...who knows if it was ever published, or peer reviewed ? ), I must severely inhibit my emotional and psychological functioning by viewing all negative interactions as abusive and violent.
Thus I will now always be the victim when something nasty or even a little bit unpleasant happens.
Therefore I will cease to be the high-functioning individual I now am and will make myself a complete basket-case
Simple solution: Don't ask the nurse dumb questions! When the pt. can have visitors, the nurse will come out and say so. The nurse DOESN'T know when the pt. will be seen, don't keep asking! Apparently, she gets miffed when you keep asking dumb questions! Don't go there! She is busy, and every time you interrupt her; she loses focus and has to regroup; causing further delays!
I know you have the families best interest at heart, but stop bugging the staff!
And I should have added, the OP apparently just "grabbed a nurse" who had nothing to do with the pt. in question; which is anethema to ANY nurse. It is NOT OK to just grab anybody in scrubs who looks like a nurse to handle your problem!
I have been so accosted by Dietary, PT and Lab more times than I can mention simply because I am a 'nurse', and thats ALL they see in thier quest to "have somebody take care of this problem that I don't want to".
Think for a minute, and try to find the appropriate person to deal with the problem, ancillary staff! Don't just try to shove it onto the nurse!
Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
. . .We never ask a nurse questions when they are with a patient, we wait until they are out of the room. We ask this nurse if they knew where Mr. Jones was. She goes, "What do you mean? Is he in triage? Is he in minor care?" My co-worker states that he was in triage, not minor care. She says, "Well I don't know. Are you sure he isn't in minor care?" She just had this real snarky tone. Just flat out attitude. Condescending and rude. She was clearly talking down to my co-worker as if my co-worker didn't know anything. My co-worker has been there for years. She knows what she is doing. We walked away. I know it's hard to see an attitude through text, but she was just beyond rude and nasty. I don't know how else to put it.
My co-worker is so sweet and beyond polite to this chick. The funny thing is, we were in the room next to this nurse before we asked her the question, and she was so polite to the patient, yet she talks down to us.
It is hard to imagine how someone could be that over-the-top while at the same time her words themselves don't sound that bad! I can imagine those exact words said by a variety of people and some of them could say those things and sound almost huggable.
I take your word for it, though. What I wonder is-- why has your co-worker put up with her crap for so long? Normally I will wait until a clear pattern of behavior between myself and the individual in question has transpired to rule out the completely stressed out, has-no-idea-what-she-sounds-like type of isolated incident. I've been snapped at at least once by countless numbers.
When you run into a pattern with one person I suggest the very direct approach. You came up with it yourself, I think, basically. "your tone is rude or whatever and I don't want to be talked to that way". Look her in the eye. Don't even raise your voice. That has never failed to work with me once I've ruled out the isolated incident with the person. Best wishes.
Now you're committing lateral violence against the author! Name-calling! Although come to think of it, I indulged in a sarcastic comment at her expense, so I'm just as violent as you are.
And if this article had been published/peer-reviewed, I think someone would have caught the "different to..." Oh crap, nitpicking is violence too. Nascar Nurse is right, we're all abusing and being abused at all times.
If the "rudeness" displayed by that nurse, as you have described it here, has been the most shocking, upsetting thing you have seen thus far in the ED -- you have been very lucky indeed. If you plan on a career in the ED, you may want to reflect on what your response will be when you witness a coworker get physically attacked by a patient, or you yourself are physically assaulted. Or what your response will be when you have more than one critical patient at the same time, each of whom is trying really hard to die on you right now. Or, what your response will be to raw emotions ranging from anger, to grief, to psychosis, to denial.
I wish you well.
No, this is not the most shocking thing I have seen here.
I've seen a coworker get assaulted and plenty get swung at and I've seen security pull out their guns. I've seen plenty of leather restraints put on and employees at all levels getting spit on. I've seen plenty of people covered in blood rushed in, and I've seen a few die. I've also been cussed out by visitors in my face right in front of everyone. I also had a nurse roll her eyes at me and I just smiled and walked away.
The patient to employee relationship is not the same as the employee to employee relationship. Patients and visitors come and go for the most part. The employee to employee relationship is long last for the most part.
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johnny depp23
218 Posts
I bet that rude nurse gets on here from time to time.