Not long ago, I was admonished for posting in a specialty forum when I admittedly had never worked in that specialty. It surprised me, because the question being discussed had very little (if anything) to do with that actual specialty, but was more a general question that nursing staff in ANY specialty could have asked -- or answered.
The poster whose header screams "New to Orthopedics, and Everyone Is Mean To me" probably isn't asking for advice on how to toilet a patient with a recent hip replacement, but on how to get along with her brand new colleagues. Now I've never worked orthopedics, either, but I have been a patient there. The nurses I met working there seemed an awful lot like the nurses I've encountered in the specialties I HAVE worked, and the "politics" of the situations didn't seem to be all that much different. A Labor & Delivery nurse, an ER nurse and even (gasp!) an ICU nurse might be able to advise the poster without knowing a thing about orthopedics.
The brand new L & D nurse professes herself to be a good Christian and who posed a question about how to tolerate the immorality of her patients just isn't that different from the brand new ICU nurse fresh from a famous Bible College who announced that "The male nurses here are all immoral" and that she shouldn't be expected to work with such people. Neither question pertains to the specialty the new nurse is working in, but instead seems to be about how do you work with people whose values (morals) are very different from yours and perhaps about judging. You don't have to be a good Christian (or a bad one, for that matter), an L & D nurse or an ICU nurse to be able to shed some light on the subject for the new nurse involved.
"Failing Orientation -- What to do?"
"New LTC nurse being bullied!"
"How to deal with rude and arrogant surgeons?"
"Am I Cut Out For Nursing?"
"New L & D nurse here, can't do night shifts!"
"Is The First Year Of Nursing Really That Bad?"
"Do I really have to be a bedside nurse before I become an NP?"
"Help! I Work In ER And They Expect Me to Drive To Work In A Blizzard!" or
"HURRICANE?! I Have Small Children!"
"They Don't REALLY Expect Me to Work Christmas Do they?"
These are all questions that aren't really specialty related. They may be posted in the poster's specialty forum because that's where the poster normally starts, but when they show up in the "Get Daily" threads, anyone can answer. No, I cannot teach the new L & D nurse who is failing orientation about how to do a lady partsl check . . . but I can advise her on new ways to LEARN to do a lady partsl check, just as an experienced L & D preceptor might advise my orientee that if I'm not good at teaching her to do pacer sensing and stim tests, she might seek out another experienced nurse and ask for clarification or perhaps just a different way to look at the problem, that she might look up the procedure and read it before starting to do the checks, that she might look on AN or some other forum for tips on pacer checks, or that she might consult her nurse educator for specific advice. I can also advise her to go into the meeting with her manager humbly, ask for specific areas where she's failing and display a good attitude about improving. I don't think I'd be offended if an ED or L & D or LTC or Oncology nurse wandered onto the ICU specialty forum through the "Daily" results and made any of those same -- or better -- suggestions.
So how about the rest of you? Are you offended if an ICU nurse wanders onto (or hangs out on) your ER forum? (The ER forum is definitely funnier than the ICU forum!) Are you Oncology nurses upset if an ER nurse answers a question on your forum entitled "Where do I find the best scrubs?" If a L & D nurse answers a question entitled "Just started in ICU and my Preceptor Hates Me"?
I'm assuming that everyone would be offended if I, who hasn't worked oncology in 30 years, started giving advice about chemo protocols to a newbie or advised an orientee on a LTC unit about time management. But what about the more general questions?
