trimm

I think you nailed it on the head. I often think about why people act the way they do. I have taken Psychology and Sociology classes just like everyone here, but never have heard the reason why. I believe it is a group mob mentality. What ever is in fashion or the fad is what everyone does. People are sheep, they really are. They claim to be individualistic, but they are not. Everyone is afraid to be different or be singled out. Even Jesus had to try to convince people to treat each other with respect. See where that got him? There was a time in Nazi Germany when killing was accepted by many, not all. How do you explain this? Now a days that kind of behavior would never be tolerated, unless it was going on in Africa. Human nature is powered by fad and fashion, and until it is fashionable to treat each other with respect, it will never happen. And when it does, as we all know, fashion and fad changes with the wind.

I said it would be a dream. Not reality.

I think it's the non sugar coated truth. Maybe you have it good where you work, or have been blessed with better people than I. But I would expect that the majority have had the same experiences that I have had working in health care and in life in general. I was sitting at the pool today watching my kid when the lady behind me asked her kid where his "floaties" were. He said the lady behind the counter wouldn't get them for him. She stood up, and walked off saying she wouldn't have a job when she was done with her. This is the same lady who out loud said if she weren't in public, she would have slapped her ill behaved child. I thought about this post when she said that. Maybe I can sugar coat that for you. Sorry, I can't

This is going to be more of an essay than a posting. It is a subject that I feel strongly about and something I struggle to understand. The way we treat each other in the nursing/health care profession. I have read postings on this site with a similar theme, but I want to give my personal experiences and try to relate my point. I have been in health care for about 15 years now. Started off working as a non-licensed worker at a home for the mentally retarded. My training consisted of passing 15 questions on a medication quiz and off I went. I worked with people who were basically unskilled workers who for the most part had a good heart and were trying to earn a living. I try to think that most people are good and try to treat each other with respect. Then there was my supervisor. I don't want to get into a long story here, but I was new to this kind of work and didn't feel comfortable reporting her when she gave cold showers to a resident who would not comply with her or washed his mouth with soap when he was not behaving. This was the first abuse I ever witnessed. Eventually, I quit and she moved on and I am sure she is out there somewhere abusing those who she is supposed to be helping. I am wiser now, I would handle it differently if it happened again. Later on I worked at a state owned home for the same type of clients. I witnessed an aid spray cologne in a resident's mouth for stealing her pop. I turned her in, it was my word against hers and she won. Her friends turned against me and made my life pure Hell. So what is my point so far? People can treat each other so poorly for no reason. We all learned this in Kindergarten so why does it surprise me? Because we are all supposed to grow up and act like adults. But we don't, that's because there is no such thing as "acting like adults" it is a pure fantasy made up to create a pseudocivilized state in which decent people live. There is a reason why we are a nation of laws, and why we have law enforcement. People can do the wrong thing and be very bad very quickly. Why? I have no idea. I suppose I have done wrong in the past, my motivation was probably for personal gain or to make my self feel better about myself. I continue on to my nursing career. The place where human compassion is supposed to be at its peak. We are caring health care providers you know. I say that sarcastically because I feel that some of the worst people I have ever met have worn nursing uniforms. I have never seen another nurse abuse a patient, but I have seen nurses turn on each other, get into verbal fights and try to get each other fired. All for what? It's because we are all children that never grew up. I have seen a Director of Nursing who fired 3 nurses because she was intimidated by them and had no self-esteem. She used her power to harm people who were good people and hard workers. I have seen an administrator berate her staff in front of other staff and say hurtful and harmful things. I watched two aids battle it out in the dining room; I have refereed fights in resident's rooms. I know nursing is a stressful career, but this is ridiculous. I don't know of any other profession I have ever worked at where this has occurred. I worked home health and heard of families constantly complaining about the nurses for petty things, getting them in trouble when they should be grateful someone came to their assistance in the first place. It is too easy to pick up the phone and ruin the career of someone who is trying there hardest to do the right thing when the family can guide the nurse the way they want. The older I get, the more I believe in evil. I think there is a segment of the population who can do harm without regret and create workplace environments that are next to impossible to work in. I am sure there are many stories far worse than mine out there that I haven't even tapped into. Please, somebody explain to me the human nature than makes us eat each other and spit each other out. I get so sick of the back room discussions, the snide remarks and the way we treat each other. You know that saying, "don't go to the boss, and go to me first." Those people go to the boss to get results they want. They want you gone; they don't want to resolve any issues. It's more fun to rid you of them then start over. And that is a sad commentary as well. It is a workplace game that affects families as well as careers. When you open your mouth and speak poorly of a coworker, you are causing them far more damage than you can imagine. So, if you are one of those people who have to cause controversy, can't keep your mouth shut, and are basically evil in nature, do us all a favor and get a job as a landing strip painter or cactus weeder in the desert because we don't need your kind. Problem is, most of us are this person. I start RN school in August, I know nursing is the career for me, as I have been an LPN for the last 8. I have never had a problem with a resident, or patient and I know I am doing the kind of work that is the most rewarding. Now if I can get the people who do the same job I do to treat each other like the patients do, it would be fantastic and a miracle. Most of the people I work with say they do it for the patients, I have never heard anyone say they did it for the way they were treated at their jobs. RN school for me is a new beginning. When I graduate, I will see none of this again. That is my dream. Please treat each other with the same dignity and respect you would give to your patient.

After 8 years as an LPN, I finally decided to go back to school. I got my acceptance letter today for the ADN program and I am exited. I would like for you to please tell me the benifits of being an RN over an LPN. I have some general ideas, but I want to know what opportunities or changes this has opened for others. Please share.

I have to take exception to this. I used to believe it was what you know and not who you know, but I became a victim of the same kind of thinking and ended up canned. I wish I would have sucked up when the new DON came on board, but she had too many red flags for me to feel comfortable. She told me twice that she thought I was in a fog when she spoke to me. I have never heard anybody ever say that to me in my life. I was totally offended. It's basic sociology, if you are not in the group, you will soon be out of it.

I've only worked with one other male nurse and he was great. I believe he was fired for something but it was after I left. I have known many female nurses as well as CNA's and many a time I have seen them gather in the hall to discuss this person or that person and usually it isn't to heap praise upon them. I knew a CNA and a nurse who fought all the time and I heard both sides from different people all over the building. I just think men would punch each other in the arm and get over it. Women are supposed to be the great communicators. Maybe they communicate too much. I just came off a bad experience with 2 nurse managers and it was the first time I was ever ganged up upon like that. I am not anti women. I would not be in nursing if I were. For the longest time I thought men and women all thought alike. Now I don't think so anymore. I have never seen a group of men in a hallway discussing how bad another man is with their hands on their hips doing that chicken neck thing.

This is about my 4th response to this similar topic. I don't want to rehash the same response so this time I will keep it short. I am a male nurse and this is my honest opinion. Women are quick to anger and quicker to spurn others without regards to how the other will take it. It's like snapping at a dog for pooping on the floor. I normally get treated different than women by women, but I have had times when I was treated no differently. Because of the high number of women in nursing, it does make a difference in how things are handled. One nurse told me that she was glad there were males around to keep the women in check. She was serious. There needs to be a balance and the scales are tipped way to far in one direction. I do think nurses eat their young.

The best experiences I have had as a nurse have been on the night shift. That in itself should be telling. I am a male and I am not immune from the rath of my co workers who are mostly female. I find that they either love me or hate me. I don't know why, I just try to do my job. When I went into nursing, I thought I would be around compassionate women who were caring and nice and smelled like pretty flowers. Funny how that smell covers up a world of spite and anger. In nursing, you have to perform 100%. I am not saying that in any other job you don't have to do a good job, but a carpenter can put his nails where he/she wants them. In nursing, there is no fudge room. It is the right pt, right dose, right route etc. and you have to sign that it was perfect. And that is in a world where you may have to run down the hall just to keep up with all the lights and falls and family. Maintaining that kind of perfection is impossible and leads to people covering mistakes and living in fear of ever screwing up. Then you have your co workers who will turn you in, in a heartbeat. Nursing is stressful and the expectations are unrealistic. Any nurse that says he/she has never had a problem is very sedated or lying. I don't know how some nurses work in a facility for 20 years or more. If I could probe their brain and figure out how they do it, I could bottle and sell it. For the rest of us, there is high turn over due to burn out and stress. I am not perfect, and I don't want to be perfect. I also don't want to kill a patient, but laws and regulations make a profession that should be the best there is one of the most stressful there is. The only worse job would be doctor. They have no lives what so ever. Why anybody would put themselves through that is beyond me. And to think they must make mistakes all the time and are scared to admit it. Heck, I have called doctors and clarified orders that were wrong. What happens to them? They give a new order and it all goes away. If I pass a medication that was incorrectly prescribed by that same doctor and it is caught, it is my ass that is on the line. How is that fair? I went to school originally to be a graphic designer, if I could make a living doing that, I would change careers in a second. My sister in law has worked over nights for 20 years just to stay away from the BS. I did it for 8 and I am considering doing it again. To bad I need to hide from people just to earn a living. Long story short. Nursing is a great career if you can do it on a deserted island.

I have had both experiances. I have been treated very well moslty by older nurses and have been singled out by younger ones. My nurse manager never took a liking to me and she convinced her buddy the other nurse manager to do the same. It was like night and day and I could never figure out what I did to make her treat me like that. In my 7 years as a male nurse, I have had only one bad experiance with female nurses being catty against me. I made the mistake of telling my DON that the other staff loved me and she said "I know" and not in a flattering way. I made mistakes, and I admit to that, but I saw other nurses set up meds, pass them early, get them taken off the med cart when they left them sitting out and put under the nurse managers door and nothing happened. I know of a half a bottle of morphine that turned up missing. The last nurse that signed off on it should have got in trouble for falsifying the narc count. Nothing happened. I had accusations made against me that I proved wrong and lost my job. I was brought to the office with the DON and the two nurse managers. As I explained what happened they took turns jabbing at me for everything they thought I did wrong. It didn't matter, my termination was written up before I had a chance to explain, and after I did, they didn't care. I wasn't fired, I was exterminated. I will chock this up to an isolated case since since I used to feel immune to the female cattyness. I know this time I was at the center of it.

Most any place I have worked, I have been the lone male nurse. Most of the time there has been no problems until my last job when my nurse manager and one other nurse manager took a dislike to me for a reason unknown to me. They picked through my charting, my medex and tried to dig up anything they could on me. The finally convinced the new DON to fire me for little crap like not answering call lights and forgetting to fill out a form. Neither were true but I couldn't convince them. I'd like to say I was jerk and deserved it, but I was probably the most popular charge in the building and was well liked by both residents and staff. I have never been treated like that before and was wondering if anybody else had any stories of being singled out for being male by female staff. After I was fired, people would tell me it was because I worked with a bunch of women. Is there any truth to this?

I wish I could cry. I have had hot flashes, heart palpitations, anxiety through the roof over errors I have made. I know I am in the wrong profession because my OCD is killing me. I am a male nurse and that doesn't keep me from crying, but I would love to just break down once and get this off my chest. I lost a job over med errors. I worked the evening shift and every other weekend I would have to work days. Can you see where this is going? I was passing am meds and on one pt got it in my head that it was evening and pulled the wrong tray of meds. I even checked them against the medex as if it were evening. I didn't hear about it till the evening nurse called me and told me I passed the wrong meds. There was no harm done and we both survived it. About 6 months later I did the exact same thing. Got put on probation and could have 0 med errors in 6 months. I made it 3 months before I forgot a pill on one lady. Once again, on day shift. My next job I was so focused on the med cart that my DON told me that I spent too much time on it. She was right, I was never going to do that again yet she criticized me for it. I never volunteered to work a different shift than my own so I would not be able to make the same mistake. I did make another mistake with an eye drop later though. It was atropine for a Hospice pt and was to be given orally. I guess it didn't make sense why you would give an eye drop in some one's mouth, and looking back, it was labeled po. I guess I thought it was an error and didn't check. It is sooooooo easy to make a mistake as a nurse when you have 35 pts. and no med aid and 2 CNA's. The sinking feelings I have read about on this post is so common, the fear, the dread, the over compensation to make sure you make no mistakes. It is sad that we all work so hard just to get that license, and then are almost set up to fail in some circumstances. I would like to get out of nursing so I can live a normal life and not worry about the feeling of dread I get when I make a mistake. I make mistakes. The world needs to get over it.

I was fired for medication errors. How is that for being honest. I was working at an assisted living working 2nd shift. Every other weekend I would work days. On two separate occasions, I pulled the wrong meds from the tray, thinking in my mind it was still evening shift, checked them on the medex and gave them. (to a single pt, not everyone in the building) I was so ingrained that it was evening that for a moment I thought is was evening. After that I would write a note and hang it on the wall next to the med cart saying "days" on it so it wouldn't happen again. I was put on a 6 month probation, after begging not to be fired, and was told if I had one more error that was it. 3 months later, after checking and rechecking everything, I forgot 1 pill. I should have gotten out of nursing back then. I am human.

I had a med aide one night (don't usually get one) and she popped the coumadin from the wrong day in the cassette. I was checking the cart, saw the pill still in the slot for the correct day and gave it. Called the doc, got it fixed. It is soooooo easy to make a med error.

Nurses are people and people have flaws. We are held to expectations that are set so high that we are almost set up to fail. I would let most of the nurses I have worked with take care of my parents and I know there are some out there who I would not. I would spend an hour each night going over my paperwork and medex and treatment sheets just to make sure that every t was crossed and every i was dotted. In a workplace where a missed initial can get you fired, it is almost too much to take. It seems that some nurses are more immune to the rath of the DON due to personality. I never used to believe this thinking that all people treated everyone equally, but that is not true. I can still remember the cattiness of the staff when the new DON was hired. The one who knew her from a past job and had nothing good to say about her was fired a month later. I don't know the details, but she was a good nurse. The new DON was not perfect and I often caught her mistakes. I can still remember when she first started, and she came in to help with an admit. (I was shocked, I later found out she was required to fill out some of the paperwork, this soon ended as she changed the papers) I got a call from her asking why I didn't write an admit note. I was wondering why she was asking since our former admit nurse, who she had just fired used to do all the paperwork including the admit note. I was like, "I thought you were going to do it" I told her that the admit nurse used to do it and she said, "I only came in to do part of it." When she left the building the night of the admit, she had left me with a list of items left to do on the admit, and the admit note was not one of them. I was just following the procedure that I had done for the last 20 admits I had done before we had an admit nurse. (they never hired a new one after that cheap ***) Anyway, of course in her eyes she could do no wrong. She would write her initials on the wrong date in the medex, told me to do a readmit on someone who was not. Still venting. The main issue was a spurt in census due to another facility closing and no extra help with all the admits, falls, and skin issues that would arise on a nightly basis. I had 0 extra time in my shift as it was.