This is a bit of a vent, but a timely one. I love working with a very diverse team on a busy med/surg floor. As we are now in Spring, we have many new orientees and again I have been asked to bring a few of them along as a preceptor. Every year it just strikes me how more and more irritated I get with some basic professional behaviors that normally don't tick me off this bad, but really get my hackles up when I find myself saying to a new nurse "well, the professional way to handle this is..." Sheesh! I shouldn't have to even have that conversation with a new grad when observing behaviors and interactions with our existing staff! Here are my top two for Spring 2015:
1. Our shifts are 0645 - 1915. I have worked nights and days and still CAN'T STAND IT when it comes to being on time for either shift. If you are coming off shift, I get that sometimes patient care delays being ready for report, BUT when you are the oncoming nurse, there is no excuse. "On TIME" means ready to take report right at 0645 or at 1845.. It does not mean, "I clocked in at 0645, but let me set my bag down in our locker room and get my stuff and fill my water bottle/coffee cup/etc."
2. It is isn't appropriate to have your smart phone out on the floor. I don't care if you were using the calculator function, or the drug look up. Those tools are available on our mobile carts and are provided by our employers (which BTW, you SHOULD be using resources provided and approved by your employer per most P&P!) But let's be honest, there is a different "tap" to being on FB, twitter, or texting than there is to using a tool. As a school teacher friend of mine once said to me, "I tell my students that I always know when they are texting on a phone. It just seems unnatural that you have been looking at your own crotch for that long while smiling, smirking, and laughing."
When foreign nurses gather around and speak their common language when those of us Anglos are standing there also, obviously not including us in the conversation.
I've been in the workforce for nearly 20 years, from retail to food service to a decade or so in admin.
There's your difference, spacecheetah. Not bashing all new grads who come straight out of high school into nursing school (Lord knows I've worked with some real troopers who did this), but most of the ones I've come across haven't yet had a chance to develop a decent work ethic. People who have prior work experience seem to have developed an ability to hold themselves accountable and have no problem with conducting themselves as professionals (exceptions exist here, too, of course).
Specializes in Nurse Leader specializing in Labor & Delivery.
I am so jealous!
Oh, lord. Don't be jealous. Try finding tops that fit appropriately, that don't make you look either pregnant or 50 lbs overweight (loose fitting tops) or make you feel like your boobs are going to pop out of your shirt (form-fitting tops).
This is a very eye-opening post for me. I'm but a lowly pre-nursing student, and Idk if I have a warped outsider's view of nursing, but I'm kind of shocked at the idea that coming in late, looking at cell phones while you should be working, or not pulling your weight is tolerated at all. When I imagine my future career as a nurse I've always imagined having to be constantly busy, alert, and hyper-professional.
I've been in the workforce for nearly 20 years, from retail to food service to a decade or so in admin. My current position is very relaxed. But even working at a bookstore or a restaurant, I would have gotten written up for coming in late without calling or having my cell phone on the floor. And that's freakin' retail or food service!
I cannot imagine going through all the time, energy, and stress of training for and pursuing a career in nursing, and then bleeping off to the point of being routinely late, putting on deo every day at the nurse's station, playing Candy Crush, and just generally being a lazy good-fer-nuthin. I have put a lot of thought and energy and stress into this already and I haven't applied to nursing school yet! I want to excel at what I do. Otherwise why do it?
I encountered this for the first time in years when I was working retail for a few months over Christmas. At the company where I work FT, most of the young people are trying to break into the business, so they work hard. But at the bookstore, oh-em-jeez. I was frankly shocked at how much energy people would expend to keep from expending energy. Like, don't you realize it's less work to just do it than to avoid doing it? Whatever "it" is?
I am anti-cell-phone-in-the-workplace, for what it's worth, at least when that workplace involves dealing with the public as health care providers.
It just depends on the unit and the employees. There are ways to do it without being disruptive or trashy about it.
And P.S. If you want a career that's hyper-professional, I wouldn't choose one that involves punching a clock.
"Not a good idea. The night ones want to go home, and the day ones are busy rounding and toileting for the morning. You need to do it."
Whoa, pump the brakes. Are you telling me that your aides/techs round on a daily basis and actually toilet the patients instead of confusing work time with social hour? You guessed it, that's my peeve.
Nurses who smoke (before or during a shift) that smell like a carton of cigs...............disgusting!!!! Or even better........stand outside smoking for all the world to see, usually on a corner because the campus is smoke free - Classy!
I'm still a student, but I can't believe that they don't impress the HECK out of professionalism in SCHOOL and at job ORIENTATION!! What?! I guess a lot of the young nurses have to learn by making mistakes and being called out, but if I were doing the teaching or the hiring, i would DRILL the importance of theses issues. Being late over and over is just unacceptable. I also don't understand scrubs fitted to leave nothing to the imagination. One, that can't be comfortable, and two, nobody wants to see all of that! I can't wait to be that busy nurse that my preceptors look forward to having come on shift!
Oh, lord. Don't be jealous. Try finding tops that fit appropriately, that don't make you look either pregnant or 50 lbs overweight (loose fitting tops) or make you feel like your boobs are going to pop out of your shirt (form-fitting tops).
I actually had to buy a larger size, and then have them tailored with darts in the back so they wouldn't swallow me, but wouldn't be too tight either. I'm a small girl, but have a fuller bust...
I was hoping to see something from someone out side of Nursing (but about to get in). Most of these Peeeeeves are mine too. Because I am a professional, AND I am a Nurse! I was a professional way before I was a Nurse. Do unto others (your co-workers, everyone else too) as you would have them do unto you!!! Wow what a concept. My CALLING is to be a NURSE, its not "I am a nurse so I'll always have a job." Most of these behaviors described are behaviors that have been with these folks (and tolerated) for years if not their whole lives! TEACH MOTIVATE ENCOURAGE one at a time, that's all I can do...Just like the starfish on the beach story.... de oppresso liber!
Yes, this. I can not stand when my classmates (I'm still in school) mutter "real RNs don't do this". Yes, they do! It is everyone's responsibility to take care of patients, placing a bedpan takes two seconds.
MidLifeRN2012
316 Posts
When foreign nurses gather around and speak their common language when those of us Anglos are standing there also, obviously not including us in the conversation.
Very rude and exclusive if you ask me.