Do you in nursing land find that old time nurses, those with many years in the career, dont want to learn new things?- like learning to care for a new kind of patient than they are used to, for instance going from LTC to a more acute setting or rotating from a geriatric unit to a unit with younger, more alert residents, which would require learning new skills?
Ive spoken to a few old timers, and they seem only to want to coast until retirement.
They dont seem to feel obligated to stretch themselves, to maintain and update there skills- wouldnt they feel better about themselves as nurses if they did take on new responsibilities?
Is this the normal course of evolution in the career of nurses?
My title got edited-come on guys have a sense of humor will you.
There's no way i'd ever disrespect those experienced nurses that 1) i've learned from AND am still learning from and 2) the ones i'll be helping to take care of some day.
Also, the title didn't come across as humorous because there was nothing to indicate that it was a joke, especially since your post had a serious inquiring tone to it.
Do you in nursing land find that old time nurses, those with many years in the career, dont want to learn new things?- like learning to care for a new kind of patient than they are used to, for instance going from LTC to a more acute setting or rotating from a geriatric unit to a unit with younger, more alert residents, which would require learning new skills?
Ive spoken to a few old timers, and they seem only to want to coast until retirement.
They dont seem to feel obligated to stretch themselves, to maintain and update there skills- wouldnt they feel better about themselves as nurses if they did take on new responsibilities?
Is this the normal course of evolution in the career of nurses?
I have been a new nurse for only a year now working in postpartum but some of the most fantastic helpful mentors and preceptors to me have been the nurses that have worked there for years. I know two nurses that have worked in our hospital ON THE SAME FLOOR for 30 years!! I love to ask them questions about just about anything. I disagree that they should want to float. On the contrary, I respect they have found a place they want to stay and feel comfortable. Nursing is so wonderful in that there are so many different specialties, locations and schedules for us to choose from. We're not all cut out to be hospice nurses or public health nurses or L&D nurses or psych nurses and there is no reason we should have to try them all just for the sake of growth.
On the other hand I have met an older experienced nurse in L&D who clearly didn't want to go by new guidelines since she'd been "doing it x way forever and ever" and seemed to dislike any change.
I'm 47, have been a nurse for 16 years (second career) and yes, indeed have kept up on current practice as well as continued my education. Many of my fellow students are nurses with years and years of experience and you know what - I too am still willing to listen to new ways to do things. Medicine and nursing are an evolving science and we must all change as care progresses.
I am perplexed too as the OP seems very willing to throw out a loaded question, but doesn't seem to return to comment on the posts...hmmm.
Just curious: at what point does one become an old nurse/old dog/oldtimer, etc.?
I'm 36 and I've been at this for 15 years now, but since I am constantly changing practice settings I never feel like an "oldtimer". Am I middle-aged or what? Thanks for clarifying......
From Novice to Expert by Patricia Benner would be an excellent book for students and new grads (and even not so new) to read. I'm surprised it's still in print. Came out in the 70's. It describes different stages of nursing practice.
I've been a nurse for a long time. I don't need to learn new tricks because I already know all of them! Put that in your newbie pipe and smoke it. hehehe
I don't refer to them as old dogs or old nurses, I call them EXPERIENCED nurses. We have several where I work and I have learned more from them in a few months, then I could have learned from instructors and books in several years.
There is a reason why they may be resistant to SOME new stuff. They have been a nurse much longer that me and have good 'tried and true' expierence to fall back on. I've only bben a nurse for three years, so I'm still new, but the more experienced nurses are the BEST source of information I have found. And yes I have taught them a couple of things, but that's because we always lean from each other.
So the new nurses out there........BACK OFF!!.......listen to the more experience nurses, who knows, they just might know how to make your job easier and provide you with experiences to last your whole career.
I am perplexed too as the OP seems very willing to throw out a loaded question, but doesn't seem to return to comment on the posts...hmmm.
I've been in nursing for over 30 years, and yes, I've known nurses who are simply coasting along till retirement, but must say they are definately in the minority. I've worked in numerous areas, always anxious to learn and stretch my skills. Just started Home Health, where I'm amazed at the depth and breadth of skills needed. And thrilled to be learning new skills to add to my seasoned skills so that I have a great deal to offer my patients.
When I graduated from nursing school I was horrified when our instructors made it very clear that obtaining our RN was simply a license to learn - not the license given to us because we knew it all. And how I now suffer those new grads who pontificate on the 'new way of doing things'. Ahhhhhh.............yeah, tried that 20 years ago and it didn't work then either, but if I say so, well I'm just a resistant 'old timer'.
There really and truly are more than your professor's way of getting things done, and you would be well advised to listen to your fellow nurses who have been around a while. We might not know it all, but guess what? neither do you. We need to work together and not continue this ridiculousness - ADN vs. BSN, Need to be CNA in order to be good nurse, and now this - fresh new, and in some cases, know-it-all-graduates vs. older. seasoned, but perhaps somewhat jaded nurses who have been there and done that. Talk to 'em before you put them down, O.K?
Can we not simply work together instead of this ongoing struggle as to who is the better nurse. Lets's please grow up and stop all the in-fighting!!!
Do you in nursing land find that old time nurses, those with many years in the career, dont want to learn new things?- like learning to care for a new kind of patient than they are used to, for instance going from LTC to a more acute setting or rotating from a geriatric unit to a unit with younger, more alert residents, which would require learning new skills?
Ive spoken to a few old timers, and they seem only to want to coast until retirement.
They dont seem to feel obligated to stretch themselves, to maintain and update there skills- wouldnt they feel better about themselves as nurses if they did take on new responsibilities?
Is this the normal course of evolution in the career of nurses?
May I gently say 'balderdash"? I know several nurses who work in the 'specialty' field of geriatrics, as they put it, have done certification and continue their education on an ongoing basis. They are what we would call expert nurses, and they could teach most of us a thing or two about caring for our elderly patients in residential care. It would be a blow to our health care system if these nurses took their expertise and went to work on a different unit for the sake of learning a new skill...which in fact would be learning a different skill. Why would we take these nurses out of their field of expertise where they are needed for the residents and to mentor new nurses? The ones in particular that I am thinking of have been nursing for between 16 and 33 years!
Nurses that are reluctant to learn 'new skills' are not exclusively found in the older age bracket, nor are they confined toLTC or geriatrics. You would be just as likely to find them among the nurses in ER, ICU or medicine, and just as likely to be young and burned out!
Just for interest sake, could you define 'old time nurses' for us?
I would be classified by most as an older, seasoned nurse. I maintain multiple national certifications and routinely complete numerous CEU activities. I am one of the nurses my peers choose to take care of their loved ones when they are admitted to our facility.
Yet my most recent evaluation contained comments which suggested that I am resistant to change. To some degree that may be so-----but not without reason.
First of all many changes these days are made for purely financial reasons, ethics and clinical considerations be damned. Younger nurses would be well advised to question why many of our larger health care providers have had multiple multimillion dollar fines for fraud, multiple name changes and bankruptcies. Nurses can not assume beneficence simply because their employer provides health services.
Secondly, many proposed changes have been tried and failed before under another banner. We may have experienced the "new" initiatives at another facility, or at our current place of employment years ago, or even in a previous career field (many old dogs have chosen nursing as a second career). New nurses (and those new to their management roles) should take to heart the admonition that those who fail to study history are doomed to repeat it.
Thirdly, many of the new "tricks" asked of the old dogs are so poorly thought out prior to implementation that even those ideas with some merit are destined to fail. Changes are "rolled out" without regard to available resources, individual institutional characteristics and without pilot projects solely in order to be first in the area to do so. Where pilot projects are used, negative feedback of any kind is ignored or punished because eventual implementation of the latest "favor of the month" is a foregone conclusion.
Certainly there may be some old dogs who don't want to learn new tricks. However, one should not make the mistake of equating maturity and experience with inflexability. Rather they may be at a point in their careers where they can recognize a bad idea when they see it and will neither be praised nor threatened into stating otherwise.
Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN
12,126 Posts
There's no way i'd ever disrespect those experienced nurses that 1) i've learned from AND am still learning from and 2) the ones i'll be helping to take care of some day.
Also, the title didn't come across as humorous because there was nothing to indicate that it was a joke, especially since your post had a serious inquiring tone to it.