Rude Nurses

wee_oneRN · May 14, 2011

I think many people have the misconception that nurses are supposed to always be sunny, fluffing your pillow, cuddly, flight attendants. The true world of nursing is far from that. Mistakes take lives and cause lawsuits. As soon as you graduate you are expected to stand on your feet and think at the same speed and level as a 20 year veteran.

Please understand that I do not think it is okay to be rude to fellow nurses or students. I just want to point out that sometimes students and pre-nursing students' expectations play a big part in the 'eating-their-young' theory. From what I have heard, it's a thousand times worse for medical students. Physicians have zero patience with students. And the truth is, in the medical world, they will have to make critical decisions with no help, and zero time!

BackpackingRN · May 14, 2011

As a new grad, nurse preceptors are still working with me in my residency and the ones from school are very fresh in my mind.

My best preceptors were honestly the ones who were the hardest on me. They were amazing teacher and expected me to perform well. I had a few nurses that were outright rude... calling me "hey you there candystriper" or getting annoyed when I wouldn't do things out of my scope of practice, but honestly, these were the on the minority.

Most of my preceptors were amazing. I could not have asked for more special, intelligent, caring individuals. WHen I did my senior practicum in the ED, my preceptor introduced me to all the nurses slowly who he thought would be good additional teachers. These nurses hollered for me to do IVs, foleys, blood draws, cultures, see a really sweet lac, help with a code, run with the code team.... everything. I would say that PRETTY MUCH every nurse is a great teacher when they want to be. A lot of these nurses did not want a student trailing their every move, but they were fine with an independent student as I had proven that I would not do anything I was not allowed to do or that I hadn't done, or needed more practice on... Most nurses are eager to let the new, eager nursing students or nurses do the hard foley. I mean, Jeez sometimes I swear they asked me to do stuff just to get a laugh when I looked at them like... erm this is NOT what it looks like in my textbook... And you know what, it was funny.

Anyway, basically I'm saying that not all nurses should precept, the ones that were rude were the ones that had been forced to precept. Everyone else was great! I only hope I continue to work with excellent nurses. Even the nurses who set me up to get a laugh - they aren't bad people, I am honestly just easy fodder for jokes because I am sooo gullible and new-grad-oh-my-I-need-help-ish.....

My mentor gave me good advice. She said, look, they are all just people. If you have a problem with them, remember that.

It seems sooo simple now! I wish I had understood it when I stood hyperventilating in the utility closet after a particularly bad nurse-eat-student encounter on peds...

caroladybelle, BSN, RN · May 14, 2011

Part of the problem is in how schools and hospitals arrange clinicals.

In around 80-90%, the nurse walks on the floor, finds her assignment and then finds that she has student(s). No advance warning, no consideration of any other issues (like inservices, meetings, or the number of other students that you might have) . The instructor usually picks PTs that have something "interesting" going on, invariably something busy that requires extra work or monitoring by the nurse. And the assignment that nurse has should be lighter to accommodate "teaching" but is usually is heavier because the "extra hands".

Students like to think that they "are working" and lightening the load, but in reality, it generally takes so much time and instruction, it ends up increasing my workload. To paraphrase a well known medical "rule", find me a nursing student that doesn't double my workload and I will kiss your feet. I haven't yet kissed any feet.

And it is not the nurse's job to help you achieve your goals. Most of us are not informed as to your goals or for that matter, what your capabilities are....too many instructors just bring students to the floor and drop them off. The floor will per usual be understaffed, the RN will be paired with an LPN for 12 pts, and have 4-5 students to "teach", none of whom can get into the omni or Pyxis, they do handwritten notes but cannot enter them in the computer, and they need assistance with all tasks. After they leave, I will have to spend several hours catching up and be late leaving. And I / my facility do not get paid one iota for this.

Then some student complains about how they should get paid for clinicals because of "all the work" that they do, and complain that the nurse was a bit curt and not immediately available or thrilled to help.

It is not appropriate to ever be rude, but do not mistake lack of time for rudeness. Our first duty is to the good of the pt, and students are farther down on the list. It is neither the students' or nurses' fault, but the facilities that permit clinicals but do not supply adequate staff to properly teach and mentor students.

PS I currently work at a facility that does a much better job of handling clinicals, and because of that, we get excellent feedback from students.

Blu rose · May 14, 2011

On one hand, there are nurses who are rude to patients and students as well. They order the students to do work for them. I think working for them is actually good for students because it helps gain experience. On the other hand, there are nurses who are angels. They care for their patients, talk politely with students and, explain and demonstrate the procedures to them with patience. I am glad that I got to work with some nurses who are happy to have students on the floor. I look up to such nurses and forget about the ones from whom I cannot learn much.

3dayRN · May 14, 2011

When I was a student there was one particular nurse that was rude to ALL students. We would go to the floor to get our assignments and hope and pray she was not the nurse in charge of our assigned patient. She was SOOOOO rude. Funny thing is she is now my supervisor and she is as nice as could be. She obviously just didn't work well with students. I always said when I became a nurse I would be so nice and helpful to all students.........however, some students are just rude themselves!! It goes both ways.

BackpackingRN · May 14, 2011

Caroladybelle,

I would agree. Luckily my school set us up with a preceptor for the semester. We worked with the same person every single shift and we got the assignment with them as they got it. A lot of the time from what I saw the people who were assigned nurses the morning of the shift also were given info on their patients the night before so they could research etc.... that doesnt make a whole lot of practical sense to me for learning in the long run but to each his or her own I guess. I am sorry you haven't met any nursing student that was actually helpful... My senior practicum instructor pretty much let me operate on my own, I had my own patient load and it was in the ER so honestly there was not a lot of flexibility, slammed is slammed and I held my own but was supported if I needed help... I bet it is harder the lower the semester or if your student doesnt ask questions if they need help and just goes at it so you need to constantly watch them...

Hope you get a good one soon!

caroladybelle, BSN, RN · May 14, 2011

I believe that you mistake what I meant.

I did not say that my students were not helpful. I also did not say that they were bad. In the majority of cases they tried to be helpful to the extent that they could. What I said is that they create a substantial amount of additional burden, especially if the nurse takes her job seriously, and wishes to do the job well, in a manner that benefits the student yet keeps the pt safe.

And in the vast majority, the staff receives no instruction, warning, nor did they get additional compensation for this, while taking a certain amount of additional to their license.

BackpackingRN · May 14, 2011

In that case yes, I did misunderstand you. I was also saying though that it stinks to have a student thrust upon you and that I saw a lot of that and felt fortunate to have an assigned nurse (who was also getting paid more). I do agree though that the majority of what I saw was not this way.

caroladybelle, BSN, RN · May 14, 2011

I wish that they would hand out to the precepting nurse, a list of what is expected, what the students are expected to be capable of, and any pertinent rules or directives.

Part of it is just a failure of the system. The nursing faculty do not get paid an adequate wage, and accept a lot of risk to their license. They are rarely paid for all of their prep hours. There is little "orientation" offered to faculty or students to the facility and it's policies, other than brief generic data. Often the students are not given the necessary codes or passwords to do what they need to, necessitating the floor staff to assist them. And the instructor may have students on several units.

This not a good way to "teach anyone" and is guaranteed to add stress to a situation.

Few students get it until they are a new nurse, that is barely able to keep head above water, is shortstaffed, needs to leave work reasonably on time, and someone suddenly presents him/ her with 3 nursing students, all with different goals. Then one wants to interview her in her onshift "downtime", for a class project that will just take "a few minutes", another wants to know the exact differences in all the different forms of cancer and have I heard of the anticancer diet by Kevin Trudeau, and what do I think about him, and one wants to be a pt advocate, and wants assist the severely neutropenic/thrombocytopenic pt into alternative healing with her ingestion of unpasturized diary and warm coffee enemas.

This nurse will probably be ingesting ibuprofen for the severe headache, soda as she will be hypoglycemic, from lack of food, and leave late after trying to play catch up after the students leave - all at different times, all with different levels of knowledge.

It is a good thing to precept new nurses, but the system needs to provide adequate time, information and support to the nurses so that it does not become a undue burden instead of a privilege.

edmia, BSN, RN · May 14, 2011

Ha! Unfortunately, the rudeness does not end once you graduate. There is quite a bit of research done on why nurses "eat their young" and it happens on a daily basis in all nursing environments. To me, it is one of the worst aspects of nursing. Violence in the workplace is a common occurrence, so just take a deep breath and move on. You won't change that nurse that has been stuck in her job for 20+ years and your generational differences are not worth the fight.

The best thing you can do is be an example of what nurses should be like: polite, helpful, intelligent, not holding a grudge, not prejudiced, and do your job well.

Good luck!

SHURN · May 14, 2011

I have to agree with Carolladybelle on this - I think sometimes what seems rude is really just overwhelmed. I really feel bad when nursing students don't have a good RN to pair with. But not all of us are good at teaching. I personally don't like to do it. And it had nothing to do with not liking a particular student or students in general. I have never liked teaching- it is just not one of my strong suits. Also, like mentioned, we are usually already short staffed; adding an extra body to teach is just too much sometimes. Add that on our floor, the students ALWAYS show up just as we are wrapping up report. I don;t have time to sit and catch them up. I think that their instructer should know this and bring them earlier. NOT the student's fault, just a failure in the system.

Ruby Vee, BSN · May 14, 2011

i have noticed as a potential nursing student that many nurses are hostile and unkind to nursing students. this extends to refusing to help students achieve necessary tasks, displaying a antisocial attitude towards students on their units, and extrapolating any excuses to refuse assignments that require students. is this a normal finding in the nursing field?

some people are rude to other people.

on the other hand, what you're witnessing may be nurses' reaction to being supremely overworked and suddenly finding out they're now also responsible for preventing a well-meaning (perhaps ill-mannered) student from causing harm to their patient.