nikkole318

OMG my heart goes out to you. I had a similar experience as a new nurse. I started off with a preceptor who clearly was not interested in helping me learn. As a brand new nurse, she told me to go discharge a patient without showing me how to print learning materials for the patient, what steps to take in the EHR, or anything else. She simply handed me a checklist and said “go do this discharge - it is self-explanatory. She would become visibly annoyed if I asked about something more than once even though trying to learn everything as a new nurse is like trying to drink out of a fire hydrant. I asked our educational director if I could precept with other nurses for a more broad experience and she said no with her explanation being “she was a teacher at a school so she’s the best nursing preceptor.” This educational director also told me that I wasn’t talented enough to work there because I hadn’t passed my arrhythmia test on the first try. Mind you, other people in my class failed as well so I wasn’t the only one. No remediation, no help, just “If you don’t pass this next time, you should look elsewhere for a job.” The most ridiculous thing about that was she had no power over hiring or firing, and we were union. As a brand new nurse, I was crying, thinking my livelihood was at risk. Looking back, she literally just said it to bully me. Another awesome thing that happened was that I had asked way in advance to have off one Friday because I was a bridesmaid in a wedding that was taking place that day. The education director snapped at me, saying “okay but let’s not make this a habit.” When I started all new graduates were hired into the critical care float pool. I was paired up with a nurse who had no idea she was supposed to have a preceptee that day and literally had a tantrum when I showed up. I ended up precepting with her anyway. I made a couple mistakes (mind you I had been a nurse for all of 3 weeks) such as documenting certain things too often, I.e. every hour when they were supposed to be every 4, and running a 4 hour IV antibiotic as piggyback instead of concurrent with the maintenance fluid. I overheard her telling another nurse who precepted me that I “didn’t know what I was doing” and that she should give me a poor review. When I returned to my regular floor, my original preceptor came up to me and said “This Nurse was talking about you, telling other people that you have no idea what you’re doing.” Even after this, I was paired with her. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when at the end of the day I was trying to give report to the next nurse, she interrupted me, and told me I was doing it wrong and just started speaking over me. I was about to start crying, so I ran into the locker room because I was embarrassed to cry in front of everyone. Adding insult to injury, the next day, the learning director approached me and said “your maturity level has got to improve. I was told you walked away during report.” I was so overwhelmed and upset that I didn’t know what to even say and started crying again! I ended up sticking it out for a little more than a year, then moved on to a much better job. I still get upset thinking about my experience as a new grad, but it has taught me that there are good people out there and there’s no rule saying that you have to spend years in a toxic work environment. Just get your feet wet, and if things don’t get better, move on.

I disagree with your first sentence. I think that when people are in the hospital, there are very much out of their element and the stress of being there along with being ill or injured makes them more likely them to act out in ways they would NEVER act out in other situations. For lack of a better word, they "forget" that the people helping them are humans and that, especially if they are competent, they are to be held accountable for their actions. I think a "reminder" that assaulting healthcare workers is illegal would help.

Great advice

Omg, I'm SO sorry that happened to you. Yes, just drop the potato and walk away.

"I'll have an order of COPD, make that a value chronic illness. Hold the steroids, extra breathing treatments.". Illness forces them there, they want the illness to stop but in the grand scheme of things, they don't want to be there at all. This is an excellent thing to remember!

I would NEVER advocate pressing charges against a dementia patient who thinks we are invading his house and sticking him! I'm talking about policies and procedures for those who are either completely competent and assault healthcare workers.

Maybe you can help, point me to some good resources.

Yeah, I guess it is. I work for a for-profit hospital and they really have done nothing as far as education.

I've actually seen those commercials and they are great. I think that our hospital should have a policy regarding violence, such as incident reports, or at least a guideline that employees can refer to when it happens. At my hospital, management does absolutely NOTHING about violence against healthcare workers. A nurse in our ER got severely assaulted by a completely competent man who just walked into the ER and apparently wanted to find a woman to beat up. She was so badly injured that she was out of work for months. We don't even have real security. We are a for-profit hospital, so they "save money" by hiring 1 rent-a-cop per shift who gets paid $10/hour.

Yes, I have taken care of too many ETOH patients to count and I've been lucky enough to not get assaulted (yet). I realize that it is part of our job to take care of patients, but it is not our job to take physical abuse. I've witnessed abuse happening from patients who are 100% with it too, which is even more intolerable. Thank you for the article. I would like hospitals to take measures to prevent abuse from occurring in the first place. Is their medication being managed properly? Have there been any studies to show that ETOH patients should be managed a certain way? Should competent patients sign a waiver to acknowledge the fact that hitting healthcare workers is against the law (I think people forget). What studies have been done to try to determine what prevents violence? This is such a huge topic, and a controversial one, so I don't even know where to start! I was going to find books to read about addiction, because these patients tend to be the ones who are most likely to be violent. That way I can bring more understanding to the situation.

That is so messed up. What is wrong with people?!?! That last part you said is an excellent point.

WOW! Yeah, that is rude. It seems like people forget that nurses are people too, with their own struggles. What did you say?

I agree that there are some patients who just need to vent. Sometimes just asking them what's wrong goes a long way. Other times, patients are mad at you for providing care. Haha.

People are always saying not to take your work home with you, but I think you def cannot help it at times, the good and the bad.

Hi Everyone! I've been SO exhausted lately! There are times where I know that I was meant to be a nurse, there's nothing I would rather be, and I feel that my job is SO rewarding!!! .....and then there is this week. There seems to be a very large influx of patients and family members that are extremely rude and demanding! I'm looking for help before I get burned out! There are a lot of things that patients sometimes say, such as "hurry up, you people aren't helping me (when you've been running around all night, cleaning them up every hour), etc..." I TOTALLY understand that these patients are probably having the worst day of their lives and I would never in a million years trade places with them, but I can't help but to take it personally sometimes. Can you give me some advice on how to diffuse or deflect these types of comments? Maybe some good ways of handling some of the more rude comments that you've been handed? They don't have to be the ones I mentioned above, because I'm sure whatever you've heard, I have heard or will hear too.