Nurses Also Eat Our Old

PennyWise · May 31, 2012

It's not just the young, new nurses who get gobbled up by other nurses.
We old birds also get ground into the dust - a picturesque of saying that we eat our old.
And the middle aged among us aren't much better off!
I think Nursing has become, like our society in general, so inwardly focused. There are no more western frontiers to conquer so we focus on things closer to home. This makes us picky, petty. Yeah, some good comes of such a focus, but also plenty of ill.

I too think the whole victimization thing is a bit off target. This is what I see in RL and here on AN:

1. Young nurses often claim nurses "eat their young". They usually have very dramatic stories of how practically their entire unit is filled with bullying vet nurses who live to make them oh so very sad. They all work so hard to deliver individualized quality care (tongue in cheek) and everyone else just wants to sit at the nurses station and complain.

Many new/young nurses had a hard time finding work. There are entire threads dedicated to hospitals and other facilities not wanting to hire new grads.

2. Veteran nurses claim they are being forced out of their positions in favor of cheaper/younger/prettier new grads. Their entire unit and the rest of the hospital is filled with new grads and the experienced nurses are being let go for such trite reasons. "This is not fair to me or safe for the patients" they proclaim. Young nurses lack the knowledge to deliver anything beyond task oriented care and are more prone to make mistakes. Even if they are not one of those young prima donas who sit at the nurses station all day on their smart phone, they still don't measure up.

Agism is rearing its ugly head in the nursing world. There are also entire threads dedicated to this.

Obviously, both sides can't be telling the full truth at the same time. Both sides claim to be the victim, and if both stories are true, there would be no clear antagonist (since both sides are victims). So who then is being honest? Who do we trust to "say it like it is"? I honestly can't decide.

But wait...................hold on there for a second. There is one way both parties could be telling the truth. If each one is truly being treated as poorly as they say, hence both are victims, then the antagonist could be another third party. This mystery third party would have something to gain from all the short staffing and lowering wages and firing/non-hiring.

Could it be (gasp) that corporate america with its healthcare administrators/politicians/insurance companies are the real enemy?

Even more mysterious is, how did these wicked masterminds manage to turn nursing against itself? Young nurses vs old, BSN vs ADN, LTC vs acute care................etc, etc. Did they spike the punch at every nursing school graduation ceremony with a magical elixer that causes one to suddenly and forever hate everyone in their profession who is not exactly like themselves?

Or is it something more simple than that? I wonder if maybe there is no need for such an elixer because, as a whole, our profession exudes passive aggression and chronic inferiority at toxic levels. We choose to attack one another because we lack the knowlwge and/or courage to face the real monster, the mystery third party. Better to make one of our own a little miserable than to risk death at the hands of the enemy. (There are also multiple threads on this).

We all float down here.

Kooky Korky, BSN, RN · Jun 4, 2012

I think you're right, PW. No need for elixirs. The bosses are largely to blame.

But there are also just some nurses and other staff who find it necessary to complain about anything and everything. Of course, this complaining is to the bosses and to other employees.

Instead of talking directly to the "offender", and doing so in a way that's meant to find solutions to real or imagined problems, the immature, selfish, or just plain mean complainers talk to everyone except the nurse they figure is to blame. Once these barracudas have the boss's and coworkers' ears, their victim is probably doomed. No matter how hard the victim tries, no matter how much help and teamwork he or she gives to others, no matter how many compliments come in from grateful patients and doctors and even other coworkers, the victim is going down.

Some people are motivated by jealousy, some by fear, some by just plain meanness aor a need for creating trouble for someone else.

Lord Jesus, come quickly.

jodyangel, RN · Jun 6, 2012

Some people are motivated by jealousy, some by fear, some by just plain meanness or a need for creating trouble for someone else.

This is spot on.