When they say there is a nursing shortage I know why. So many happy eager nurses are graduating from nursing school ready to take on the challenges of nursing. However these same nurses are confronted with negative critical, over bearing, condescending nurses who take pleasure in torturing the newbies. It is like its some kind of “gang” initiation or something. When they say nurses eat their young, they sure do. I have seen senior nurses congregate at the nursing station where they discuss and gossip like schoolgirls about the new nurse. I once had a nurse who with a smile on her face told me that she made her preceptee cry. Mind you, this new nurse was an experienced nurse from another hospital, she was only new to our facility. This hostile work environment created by some nurses is what drives young and new nurses to quit and leave the hospital. These nurses get burnout because they do not have that support that they should be getting from the senior nurses.
I am not saying that this is what happens the majority of the time, but I am sure that most nurses have either experienced or witnessed this behavior at some point in their careers. It has definitely made me on some occasions question why I became a nurse.