Nurses Eating Their Young- A Different Perspective

We all have heard it before. Nurses eat their young. We all have complained about it and people tell us "oh no, don't do that." Simple fact is that it happens, and I will try to explain to you why it does happen and why it is not always a bad thing. Nurses Announcements Archive Knowledge

Updated:  

Nurses eat their young. It happens and people complain about it like it is a bad thing. It may be in your eyes if you are the one being eaten, but in my eyes I am going to eat you alive and spit out your bones into something that resembles a nurse. You are entering the cauldron of fire, so expect to get singed.

That above statement is already setting some of you on edge. I understand that and I accept that. I felt the same way at first, but as the years have passed by I have learned why we do it and more importantly, the reason. Let me explain to you why in a way that is not nursing.

Imagine if you are a soldier ... Lets take it from there

  1. Patient = fire team
  2. Pilot = Nurse Practitioner
  3. Officers = management
  4. Your squad mates = your fellow nurses with more experience
  5. Enemy = death
  6. MD = (sometimes the enemy) a fellow service member form another branch

You enlisted in the service, you passed basic training (nursing school) and now you are ready to join your unit. ( I know I skipped AIT, for those military among us) You show up on the bus all excited and happy to be chosen for this special unit. It is everything you wanted, it is just where you wanted to be. Great, happy to have you aboard, now get out the salt and pepper, or maybe the opposite is true. You do not want to be here, but rather this is the only place you could get to right now.

Fine, get out the salt and pepper

Be prepared to be eaten. I am your new squad Sargent. I am there to help you get acclimated to the unit and the patrols as FAST AS I CAN. You show up in your new shiny uniforms, new boots and the new weapons (ie: stethoscope, tablet, etc) and look around you and see the older squad mates' uniforms are faded, they may even be a bit tattered, our combat boots may not be shiny, heck they may even be a bit soiled. But you know what, to us your uniform looks uncomfortable on you and those ugly boots we are wearing, they are like a second skin to us and those new ones you got are going to blister your feet. We accept that and realize that with age your boots are going to get broken in and your uniform will fade. Just don't point out to us how yours is better or newer. New does not always mean better, sometimes our weapons that you think are old and stupid are the ones that never fail in combat. You start out like that and I will eat you so hard right there that you will wish you were never born. Your old Drill instructors (nursing instructors) have nothing on me in making you feel small if I choose to.

I introduce you to your squad mates and I show you around

I know you are new and do not know where everything is, but LISTEN to me when I am talking to you and pointing things out. I know it is a lot of information to digest, but it may save your life and your fire mission's life if you listen. I expect you to ask me questions, but think about the question first. Did I already answer it? Did I not just show you where the supply tent was? Did I not point out where to keep your gear? Did I not show you how to reload your gun or program in the fire coordinates on the fire control computer? I probably did and if you keep asking I am going to start to wonder about you and think maybe you are going to get me killed or the fire team killed.

Time for your first patrol

The officers come by and gives us our mission. We need to work as a team to complete it, there are no Rambos in our unit. Accept the mission, I will be there to help guide you and keep you alive, for now. I do not want the fire mission to fail at all costs. When I feel you are strong enough to do more of the mission on your own, I am going to let you, whether you think you are not.

So now we go into the field for combat against the enemy. I know you learned all these supposedly fancy new ways of combating them, but the enemy doesn't always react the way you were taught it would. Things are different in the field, than in the classroom. Don't tell me how to do something unless I am asking you how it is done the new way. Listen to me how to set up an ambush. I have been fighting these battles many years and I am still alive. Don't look above at the pilots flying around doing their thing while we are in the trenches and say you would rather be there. It takes time to learn to fly, and I skin you and filet you alive if you think you are better than the rest of your squad mates. If you express an interest in learning to fly, I will be happy to help you get to the point you can learn to fly. I want all my squad mates to succeed, because the fire mission will then succeed.

I am going to jump on you during the training I give you, I am going to eat you up, I am going to speak bad of you, I am going to report on you to the officers. I will make your life miserable for a while. I may not let you take lunch with your buddies from basic who are now in an another unit in your command. They may have their own mission to conduct, or our mission is going badly. Sometimes I may make you work extra hard helping another soldier out, who is up to their butt in crocodiles. I am also going to praise you when you need it, but don't count on it very often. I am going to ride your butt so hard, you are going to wonder why you even enlisted. You are going to think I am unfair, that I am trying to get you killed, that I am giving you too big of missions at times, but know this. AT ALL COSTS THE FIRE TEAM MUST DO THEIR BEST! Sometimes we don't win all the battles and death does come for the mission. we accept that and expect you to accept it and pick yourself up and carry on soldier. The time to grieve is later in private when it fails, but know this; we old eat their young and are also grieving about the loss, but realize there are other missions we are needed on at that moment.

My Goal

My goal in eating you up is to toughen you up so that you may lead other soldiers in combat and save the fire missions, maybe even help you get to be a pilot or an officer, which not all of us want. Some of us were previous officers but decided we liked the trenches with the blood and guts and muck better. My goal is to see you succeed and carry on our legacy and eventually replace me when I fall. Which one day I will fall and become a distant memory. Until that moment I am going to eat you up and spit out your bones into proud strong self reliant Nurse. That is why eating our young is not a bad thing.

Related topics...

Why Do Nurses Eat Their Young?

Nurses Eating Their Young Is Not Okay

Watch WHY Nurses Eat Their Young?! My Story video...

@AdamantiteEnigma Oh my goodness, I LOVE your attitude! I start nursing school in the spring, and I hope I have lots of mentors like you! Your approach is the kind that helps me the most- strong and corrective.

0 Votes
@AdamantiteEnigma Oh my goodness, I LOVE your attitude! I start nursing school in the spring, and I hope I have lots of mentors like you! Your approach is the kind that helps me the most- strong and corrective.

To be sure - there are a lot more of us out there than many would care to admit.

0 Votes
Specializes in Stepdown . Telemetry.
Thank you all, for the perspectives. I am preparing to start nursing school in January. Honestly, I wish I had known what nurses were like before I chose it as my future career. I really just wanted to take care of people. It's too late to turn back now. And at least I can brace myself for what's to come.

Honestly, dont let this OP lead you to expect this environment. I don't know what hospital the OP works at, where this is the culture, but mine is NOTHING like this. There should b a pole on this OP to see how many people have actually experienced a unit like this. This is not the common-place work tensions, this type of behavior and attitude of the op is extreme. It sounds like it would be a nightmare.

I hope this is just the OP and not a common reality. Seek out a well-reputable hospital where this militant culture is NOT tolerated. I have to believe most places are not this way.

0 Votes

As a New Grad, the level of arrogance in this post is sickening.

My orientation consisted of a variety of preceptors, and some JUST LIKE YOU. But the thing is, that spirit doesn't foster of an sense of tust or rapport or even independence, which the nurse will need when he or she is on their own. SO you say you are going to talk about them to theeir superiors? That is so stressful to a New Grad, who is going from what used to be textbook information to now the real world. They are already have stressful patients demanding to know from them what they ought to know. And Attendings and residents again asking them, what they "ought" to know.

The best preceptors I had, mad me feel comfortable, they were my friends, Because when I was off orientation, I was their co-worker. What you promote is a BULLY attitude and trust me buddy, if I precepted at your hands, I would be gone in 5 minutes to orient with someone else. At this point in my career, I am careful and I was there all 110% of me each day of orientation to LISTEN. So no I will not be told what to do like I was told in Nursing school. These New Grads are every bit a nurse as you are, they just lack the clinical experience and knowledge that you have had! BUt of course you've forgotten where you've come from or the mistakes that you have commited.

This type of behavior only fosters distrust, and that really leads to poor patient outcomes. You think anyone would fess up to a med error under the pressure " I WILL JUMP ON YOU"? Or when they are performing a skill that they know they have performed before, but just want confirmation, will you JUMP ON THEM for that? This post really angers me, because this is not the definition of making someone a great nurse. It may take time for some people to gain their confidence. I just hope you haven't broken too many spirits in your quest to show you are the OLD PRO. It's preceptors like you that make people feel like they will never be good enough.

BTW: Print this post out for your manager and give it to all the new grads that come through. Tell us how that blows over.

0 Votes

We do not all have to be GI Joe's or Jane's and act as if we are playing "Risk" or "Sabatoge".

As professional adults, we can do what we need to do to give direction, let preceptees know where they can find information, pointers on how to organize themselves, and observation on the correct way of doing something.

This doesn't include a "tear 'em down and build 'em up approach.

At the end of the day we all go home. We do not live and breath our work.

To do so would be burn out. Should a facility want to treat new nurses like this, then perhaps they should provide housing, meals, call it a nurse corp and we can all smoke em if we got em.

Honestly, direct and to the point and staying on task is one thing, but to go all "You can't handle the truth" would, in the real world, have one questioning your sanity.

0 Votes

Have never really subscribed to the notion "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger." I agree, sometimes apparent lack of strength or ability to deal with a situation can just be the fact that the person has yet to be tested. Supportive education can help build a foundation, but it doesn't tell the whole story. Some situations can eat you up and spit you out (no bullies required, it's just a very harsh situation). If successful, the learner gains strength by acquiring knowledge and the knowing that for that particular circumstance, they can handle it.

Relational aggression (a.k.a. speaking to underlings like they are the naughty dog who peed on the rug, just to keep them in line) really has no place in this. But just like everything else, nursing is made up of all types.

Sometimes people will point to these experiences and give them credit for making a person strong. I don't think that's the actual line of cause and effect. Sometimes I think people who are untested but inherently strong make it through. It wasn't the circumstance that made them strong. It's just the sh-stuff that didn't wear them down.

0 Votes

p.s. AdamantiteEnigma, if you did that for me, I'd be thanking the stars you walked by at that very moment.

No one likes to be wrong, but if I'm about to screw up royally, I'd much rather square that up before it happens, even if I have egg to wipe off my face after the fact (say you chose to correct me at the bedside).

Crying "bully" to avoid accountability just sort of lends credence to the idea that some need to walk around busting peoples' chops.

Two way street: we have to remain accountable and responsible, even as we are reasonable to expect that we won't be senselessly abused.

0 Votes
Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
People like this is why nursing is essentially known as an uneducated and "ghetto" career choice by the General public.

I have never heard the public refer to nurses as uneducated....however, with some of these responses, I am beginning to wonder.

0 Votes
Yes Drill Sergeant, but may I point out we aren't fighting the Vietcong with Gump?

That video really caught me off guard. Transposing the contents to nursing precepting had me cleaning my monitor this am. Not sure if that was your intent. But thank you so much for the laugh!

0 Votes
You start out like that and I will eat you so hard right there that you will wish you were never born. Your old Drill instructors (nursing instructors) have nothing on me in making you feel small if I choose to.

I am going to jump on you during the training I give you, I am going to eat you up, I am going to speak bad of you, I am going to report on you to the officers. I will make your life miserable for a while.

I have yet to meet an individual unwise enough to attempt to treat me in the way you describe. The behavior that you describe is in my opinion brutish, unsophisticated and not likely to help another person reach their full potential.

I've never found it necessary to treat any of my orientees this way, and they've turned out strong, independent thinkers and excellent team members. These are qualites I value in a nurse and co-worker.

I know you learned all these supposedly fancy new ways of combatting them, but the enemy doesn't always react the way you were taught it would. Things are different in the field, than in the classroom. Don't tell me how to do something unless I am asking you how it is done the new way.

Why not let the orientee voice their question/concern even if you didn't specifically ask for their input? If they are wrong, use it as a teaching moment. It's a known fact that hierarchical organizations are detrimental to patient safety. Every person in the team should feel comfortable with raising concern, and not just automatically bow to authority figures.

0 Votes
Have never really subscribed to the notion "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger." I agree, sometimes apparent lack of strength or ability to deal with a situation can just be the fact that the person has yet to be tested. Supportive education can help build a foundation, but it doesn't tell the whole story. Some situations can eat you up and spit you out (no bullies required, it's just a very harsh situation). If successful, the learner gains strength by acquiring knowledge and the knowing that for that particular circumstance, they can handle it.

Relational aggression (a.k.a. speaking to underlings like they are the naughty dog who peed on the rug, just to keep them in line) really has no place in this. But just like everything else, nursing is made up of all types.

Sometimes people will point to these experiences and give them credit for making a person strong. I don't think that's the actual line of cause and effect. Sometimes I think people who are untested but inherently strong make it through. It wasn't the circumstance that made them strong. It's just the sh-stuff that didn't wear them down.

I was precepted for 12 weeks in Med Surg by a preceptor with a teaching philosophy like the OP describes. Now, I got through it just fine. But I purposefully chose to do my own teaching differently. I saw my preceptor about two weeks ago on the street while shopping. We hugged and chatted awhile. She was harsh, and heavy handed at times. But she also was a living, breathing, library of knowledge who always knew what to do. She's a great person and a really good teacher. I just don't agree with her methods at times.

You don't get to choose your preceptors. Employers don't line us up and have the students choose. I am agency these days. If I'm going to take a student, I simply snatch them up. And I do that when and if I see that the nurse assigned to precept isn't excited about the concept. People do get burned out with it. Otherwise I assist as I can.

But I find it to be strange really that students are taking the route of citing bullying/hazing clauses when being corrected. Since none of us are perfect, there will be a time or times that we have the wrong idea, implementation, or approach. That's one of many areas that your preceptor will be worth their weight in gold. And if you have an disagreement or variance of opinion; my thoughts are to take that up with your preceptor first. Going beyond that nurse and up the food chain oftentimes leads to unnecessary action imo. And it doesn't always go in favor of the preceptee.

Take for example what I shared earlier. I've been informed that I need to share exactly what that new grad did that made me intervene in order to reverse my DNR. So that puts me in the sad position of having to choose between limiting my work options (I love going there and they love having me on that unit), or throwing this new nurse under the proverbial bus. I'm still mulling it over before making that phone call. But I keep thinking I shouldn't have had to be put into a position where I have to make that kind of a choice. Not exactly what I'd planned for my morning...

0 Votes

Also I think it's alarming that the OP is absolutely unwilling to learn new ways of doing things. Medicine and science changes. Just because it's the way you've been doing it for decades does not mean it is the best way anymore. Nursing is ever changing. There is ALWAYS something new you could learn. The fact that you refuse to learn new things shows your pride and your arrogance. That, my dear, is what will cause "failed missions." Your refusal to cooperate will end badly one day.

0 Votes