we often see threads with the title "fired for no reason," or "new grad harassed and fired" or something to that effect. and i always feel at least a little sympathy for the individual involved, if only because i can clearly see by reading between the lines of their self-justifying post that there was a reason for their termination, even if they just don't get it. (there are always a few posts every year from a new grad who is convinced that the reason she's not getting along with her co-workers is that she's just so beautiful they're all jealous, that crowds of mean people are following her around, that she's so wonderful she's going to rock the er or icu or nicu or or and no one sees her wonderfulness clearly, or that some mean, tired, old nurse who ought to retire and get out of the way is targeting her for no good reason.)
i worked with a new grad who was recently terminated for, as she puts it, totally bogus reasons. evidently seeing mine as a sympathetic ear, she went on and on and on about how unfair it was that management expected her to get her act together and actually understand what was going on with her patients. "i've got the time management thing down pat," she said. "i don't know what else they want. they're just picking on me for no good reason." i liked sal, i really did. she was interesting and entertaining and really, really nice. she was also smart, hard-working (when she was at work) and well-educated. but she didn't study outside of work, and really didn't understand what was going on with her patients. i participated in several meetings with her in which it was pointed out that it's not enough to do the tasks, you have to understand why you're doing them. it's not enough to draw the labs. you have to understand what the results mean and then address them. for instance, if the inr is 9, it might explain the nosebleed, the cherry red urine and the fact that the hemoglobin is now 6. giving the coumadin at 6pm as scheduled is not a good thing, even if you gave it right on time and were able to explain to the patient that "it's a blood thinner." i could go on and on.
i got a call from sal today, complaining that she knows she's blackballed for no good reason because she just can't get another job. she wanted me to give her a reference. did she just not get it?
all you new grads out there who are convinced that you're being picked on for no reason, that your more experienced colleagues are just out to get you, and that you're being unfairly targeting, harassed, or picked on, hear this: it may be something you're doing (or not doing) and all those "mean people" are trying to explain it to you so you catch on, learn your job and succeed. we all tried over and over with sal, and she still doesn't get it. are you guilty of the same thing? if your preceptor says you lack critical thinking skills, do you take it to heart, think about it and learn from it? or are you convinced that the entire issue is that she's jealous of your extreme good looks? if your charge nurse charges you with a deficit in your time management skills do you spend time figuring out where you could speed things up a bit? or do you dismiss her as a tired old dog who can't learn a new trick and ought to retire anyway? are you taking to heart and benefitting from any negative feedback you're getting, however poorly given it is? or are you obsessing about how "mean" that nurse was to you and totally overlooking the message?
i wish sal would have "gotten it." she would have been delightful to work with if she had. but right now she's focused on badmouthing her preceptors and the charge nurse, and she still doesn't understand what she did wrong. don't make the same mistakes.
Definitely. Some people are WAY too quick to jump to the "nurses eat their young" assumption every time a new nurse receives some critique. Yes, sometimes preceptors and educators need to be more compassionate. But it's also true that the newer members of our profession have a lot to learn and need to recognize that they are going to make mistakes. They need to acknowledge their mistakes and weaknesses to learn from them. Not everyone who gives them negative feedback is wrong or being mean: many are simply trying to help them learn.
Absolutely...I have no problem with negative feedback if it's constructive...Such as...
"Sally, I've noticed you've been having problems with such and such. It would help if you ask questions if you don't understand something. It might help too if you go over some of these things while at home"
As opposed to...
"SIGH...Jeez, what the hell is wrong with you new grads nowadays? How can you be so clueless? I understood this stuff right away when I graduated..You never should have become a nurse!"
I'm playing devil's advocate here because it wasn't so long ago that I was a new grad...Yes, I had lots to learn(and I'm still learning daily) but I was smart enough to realize when someone was giving me constructive criticism and when they were just being nasty...Granted, some newbies are way too sensitive, but, there are still many experienced nurses that DO eat their young. Thankfully, they are few and far between, at least in my experience.
I lack sympathy for someone that gives coumadin to a patient with an INR of 9 and then gets fired. That's basic med/surg as far as I'm concerned. That nurse could have killed that patient.
Because she was not being trained right. Hospitals are all about making money. They want to start milking the cow before she is ready. If this girl had gaps in her learning they should have been filled. That is what preceptorship should be all about "experience."
The new nurse should have been explained the process of preceptorship from day one, and given support in transitioning into a functioning nurse. I guess we wanted her to start earning her keep from the 7th, 8th, 12th week onward. She did what she could. Was on time. She did not do what she could not. Use experience.
It is not enough to tell someone they don't have critical thinking skills. We should know those skills don't come in 6/8 weeks. But we are in a hurry to make money.
Hi Ruby, I've been at work the last two days and missed your post.
I want to say, I agree. Yes, there are people who are unjustly fired in this world, but for the most part there is a darn good reason based on a series of problems, usually culminating in a final straw incident.
It is human nature to protect ones ego however, which is where some of these threads come from.
even when she was given a list of her shortcomings (and they were her shortcomings, not everyone else's) to sign, she didn't get it.
did anyone happen to give her a list of what she was doing well at? you attract more bees with honey than you do with vinegar. somewhere along the way, nurses in this role need to realize that to only point out shortcomings deflates the learning ability of everyone. additionally, if one's shortcomings are pointed out after they are told that they excel in other areas, it becomes a positive experience, not a negative one.
she admitted to my orientee that she never studied at home, and my orientee suggested to her that she might want to start doing so.
that is second hand knowledge. are you sure this actually happened? maybe you should not have been speaking with your orientee about the other - this is unfair and typical in the nursing industry.
however, there are times when it's not the preceptor, it's the orientee. and sometimes, that orientee just doesn't get it no matter what hoops you jump through to try to help her get it, or to make her understand what the problem is.
all people learn differently. if we were all the same - wow the world would be boring. i am in no way defending the new grad or her "mistakes" but if people are talking about her/him behind the back - well maybe there is justification for her reaction. i have seen one too many times, new grads be the subject of sneers and snickers instead of supportive environments. every teacher, every nurse, every manager should be forced to read the book of why nurses eat their young.
i think there are probably a lot of "sals" out there . . . and i hope maybe i've convinced one or two of them to take a look at what they're doing or not doing to contribute to their problems before it's too late for them.
i agree, there are a lot of new grads who fall below the average knowledge base. but there are also a lot of 20 to 30 year experienced nurses who fall below this level too. let's all be fair in judgment - not every nursing student will become a "good" nurse, some will just "nurse", but we must give justice to our profession by teaching with positive roles and positive approaches to learning, not negative. if i had been in the role of her teacher, i would have said, let's review what occurred with patient a - and then maybe given some journal information or textbook information and said, i would like to test you on this next week on our lunch break because it is important to under stand the "why", then treat him/her to lunch while you review the information.
Another thing I want to mention is that, sometimes the hospital will realize it needs to cut bait with a new hire who doesn't seem to be getting it, because after their probationary period is up it becames much more difficult to fire someone in many places.
Hi Ruby, I've been at work the last two days and missed your post.
I want to say, I agree. Yes, there are people who are unjustly fired in this world, but for the most part there is a darn good reason based on a series of problems, usually culminating in a final straw incident.
It is human nature to protect ones ego however, which is where some of these threads come from.
Yep. The number of times that a nurse has actually been fired for no reason is actually very small. But notice how many people are quick to defend anyone who comes on allnurses making the claim that they have been treated unfairly or that some senior nurse has been mean to them.
It's very hard to write a post here that states the perspective of those senior nurses who have to make the tough decision about who stays and who leaves ... or from the perspective of the senior nurses who have the responsibility of giving the negative feedback to the struggling new grad. A lot of people immediately jump on the idea that experienced nurses are unfair to newer ones. It's as if they can't have the opposite conversation -- that less experienced sometimes need to receive negative feedback about their performance -- and that the people whose job it is to give it are not necessarily being mean.
llg, you make excellent points. I think many of us will sympathize with someone who has been fired because many of us tend to root for the underdog. We also know that there are some dysfunctional workplaces out there inhabited by toxic personalities. Some of us has been recipients of unfair treatment in life, so we do know it happens.
As a traveler, I walk into some of the most dysfuntional places. I scares me sometimes when I see how low these places go with the venomous attitudes. While there for 13 weeks, I pay attention to what I think got them there so I know what to avoid when I go staff.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
because she was not being trained right. hospitals are all about making money. they want to start milking the cow before she is ready. if this girl had gaps in her learning they should have been filled. that is what preceptorship should be all about "experience."
the new nurse should have been explained the process of preceptorship from day one, and given support in transitioning into a functioning nurse. i guess we wanted her to start earning her keep from the 7th, 8th, 12th week onward. she did what she could. was on time. she did not do what she could not. use experience.
it is not enough to tell someone they don't have critical thinking skills. we should know those skills don't come in 6/8 weeks. but we are in a hurry to make money.
the whole point of this entire thread is that sometimes you just cannot train someone no matter how much you want to or how hard you try. gaps in learning and experience can be addressed; gaps in motivation and lack of trying cannot. by the 12th week, there ought to be more positives than "she came to work on time."
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
yep. the number of times that a nurse has actually been fired for no reason is actually very small. but notice how many people are quick to defend anyone who comes on allnurses making the claim that they have been treated unfairly or that some senior nurse has been mean to them.
it's very hard to write a post here that states the perspective of those senior nurses who have to make the tough decision about who stays and who leaves ... or from the perspective of the senior nurses who have the responsibility of giving the negative feedback to the struggling new grad. a lot of people immediately jump on the idea that experienced nurses are unfair to newer ones. it's as if they can't have the opposite conversation -- that less experienced sometimes need to receive negative feedback about their performance -- and that the people whose job it is to give it are not necessarily being mean.
you are so right! and i have to admit that after taking great pains to point out that we had given sal every opportunity to learn from her mistakes, figure it out, hear the constructive criticism and retake the critical care tests she had failed and she still didn't "get it" that there was actually a problem in her performance, i feel like banging my head against the wall. not with sal -- that's a done deal. but with the posters here who just don't get it that sometimes (probably more often than not) getting fired really is the fault of the fire-ee, and not the fault of all those senior nurses and preceptors who were trying to help her/him succeed.
Ruby, I just want to say that I agree with every point that you have made. We feel sympathetic to the person who was fired and for the most part, we only ever hear their side of the story. Not managment's. Well, we have management's side of the story in regards to Sal being fired. Personally, management needs to do something when patient safety and care is compromised and if it's by firing a nurse who has poor performance despite re-education then so be it.
you are so right! and i have to admit that after taking great pains to point out that we had given sal every opportunity to learn from her mistakes, figure it out, hear the constructive criticism and retake the critical care tests she had failed and she still didn't "get it" that there was actually a problem in her performance, i feel like banging my head against the wall. not with sal -- that's a done deal. but with the posters here who just don't get it that sometimes (probably more often than not) getting fired really is the fault of the fire-ee, and not the fault of all those senior nurses and preceptors who were trying to help her/him succeed.
i think both sides are talking about the extremes and people who dont fall into these extremes are taking it.......differently than we hope. at least thats the case with my post.
i dont think anyone out there believes everyone who is fired is just being picked on. heck, there is another post out there right now about people doing school work while on the clock and falling behind. that is no acceptable on any level, in any profession.
i dont think, on the other hand, that anyone believes that everyone who is fired deserves it. we have all seen/heard of the units filled with low moral nurses (new and experienced alike) who have no other way to keep themselves from taking a leap off the bridge than to push someone else towards it.
i have seen my share of hopeless gns. there are a few who, obviously, got their impression of nursing from sitcoms (er, house, grey's anatomy) that lead people to believe we work in ideal conditions and argue about moral issues all day. when they find out nursing is difficult work and often hard for non-glamorous reasons, they lose their desire to be in the field and hang around until they figure out where to go.
the reason i speak up about the orientation process that is failing is because, i think more than a few new nurses who dont fall into the "hopeless" category fail, despite a good attitude and a genuine desire to do well.
the gap between where schools stop and where the hospital orientation picks up is huge. it takes an exceptional person to bridge that gap. having an exceptional preceptor will make going from a to b so much more possible. for some reason though, a lot of hospitals just throw the preceptor responsibility at whoever is most convenient at the time. some people are meant to do it, some are not. i think picking who does this service more carefully would go a long way towards getting better results with retention.
just a disclaimer here so my point is not lost on defensiveness again. this is not saying i think op was not the right person for the job. her case was, from what i see, a case of the gn being hopeless. but, gee, we have to do better somehow. not that i have an answer for that.
GadgetRN71, ASN, RN
1,841 Posts
Absolutely...I have no problem with negative feedback if it's constructive...Such as...
"Sally, I've noticed you've been having problems with such and such. It would help if you ask questions if you don't understand something. It might help too if you go over some of these things while at home"
As opposed to...
"SIGH...Jeez, what the hell is wrong with you new grads nowadays? How can you be so clueless? I understood this stuff right away when I graduated..You never should have become a nurse!"
I'm playing devil's advocate here because it wasn't so long ago that I was a new grad...Yes, I had lots to learn(and I'm still learning daily) but I was smart enough to realize when someone was giving me constructive criticism and when they were just being nasty...Granted, some newbies are way too sensitive, but, there are still many experienced nurses that DO eat their young. Thankfully, they are few and far between, at least in my experience.