Fired from my first RN job after only 2 weeks.

Don't trip! You are lucky. That's not the kind of place you want to work if they expect you to practice skilled nursing after 5 weeks of orientation. If a mistake were to occur it would be on YOUR license, not your preceptors. Find another program.

So sorry to hear about your experience. I agree with many of the other posters about leaving this job off your resume. Try not to let it get to you, or keep you from applying elsewhere, including the hospital setting. Additionally, if the ED is your passion, apply there. It may be in your best interest to look into a nurse internship program. They usually include an extended orientation, additional classroom like training, and come with some perks like extra pto. Sometimes they're not in the most desirable states/cities depending on your preference. But after a couple years of experience you could move to where you want to be. The application process is usually lengthy, but worth it if it's what you want. Good luck to you in all future endeavors.

"I'm sorry for your experience. While I suppose it's possible it happened exactly as you describe, I suspect that if we spoke to your preceptor, your manager, and the education department, we may hear a very different story. And somewhere in the middle lies the truth."

What an AWFUL thing to say!! I'm sorry but nurses do tend to "eat their young" for some unknown reason. Orientation is meant to ease you into the job, shadowing, then taking 1 patient adding as you go along until you are taking on a whole team with basically a resource person. I'm not sure how they could let you go in only 2 weeks as a new grad, that's hardly enough time to judge whether someone is going to cut it or not. Yes, there may be more to the story, but I'm pretty sure you came here for support and guidance, not ridicule. Look for jobs and highlight your experience with your capstone, you will find where you are meant to be. We don't always end up where we think we are meant to be, sometimes we find our passion elsewhere.

Road2CNO was correct. We only have one side of a story that probably has at least four sides. It wasn't an awful thing to say, it was realistic.

Many folks seem to believe this is a support group where one can go for touch-feelies and virtual hugs -- and one might get that here at times. But this is a place where one can go for guidance, advice, information and perhaps a nudge to look at one's self. Nurses don't eat their young -- that's a fallacy that has earned someone an awful lot of money in book sales and speaking fees. It has unfortunately also spawned a few generations of nurses now who are more likely to blame others for their problems than look inward to see what they may have contributed to their problems. That's the sad part.

Road2CNO was correct. We only have one side of a story that probably has at least four sides. It wasn't an awful thing to say, it was realistic.

Many folks seem to believe this is a support group where one can go for touch-feelies and virtual hugs -- and one might get that here at times. But this is a place where one can go for guidance, advice, information and perhaps a nudge to look at one's self. Nurses don't eat their young -- that's a fallacy that has earned someone an awful lot of money in book sales and speaking fees. It has unfortunately also spawned a few generations of nurses now who are more likely to blame others for their problems than look inward to see what they may have contributed to their problems. That's the sad part.

If you think nurses don't eat their young, then you're the nurse eating her young.

If you think nurses don't eat their young, then you're the nurse eating her young.

If I could like this 100 times I would.

No, not necessarily. There is a "middle ground." Seeing the world in such strict black/white terms is not realistic or helpful.

Some nurses are not very nice people, are mean, etc. That is true of just about every walk of life. Not all nurses are 100% perfect 100% of the time. Nursing is a difficult, high-stress profession and sometimes, that stress is evident. Some nurses are nicer than others. We are people and we vary in our personal styles. Again, that it true of every profession.

However, it is an exaggeration to say that "eating our young" is a common or predominant feature of our profession. It does a disservice to the many kind, compassionate, hard-working nurses out there.

Suggesting that "eating our young" is a predominant theme in our profession also does a disservice to young nurses just entering the adult work world for the first time. With a lack of experience in other fields, some of these young nurses have a fragile sense of self-worth -- and find any criticism to be extremely painful. Some use claims of "bullying" and "eating their young" as a defense mechanism against having to acknowledge some of their short-comings. Rather than accept their learning needs and work to improve, they call their senior staff "bullies" and turn away -- keeping their sense of self intact, but not learning the lessons they need to learn to grow and thrive.

There are very real instances of bullying and other bad behaviors -- but the "bullying" and "eating their young" phrases get thrown around too much -- to the detriment of both the profession as a whole and to the individuals caught up in stressful situations. We need to stop throwing them around and making sweeping generalizations -- and start analyzing individual situations with an un-biased eye.

I never said ALL nurses eat their young, just that it is a thing that happens. To say outright that it doesn't happen is foolish or blind

If you think nurses don't eat their young, then you're the nurse eating her young.

Thank you for your assessment of my character.

Had you asked me forty years ago if nurses ate their young, I might have answered fervently in the affirmative. I was a brand new nurse getting started and had a very rough start. My co-workers didn't like me -- not that I was likable then. I got a LOT of negative feedback because I made a lot of mistakes. I missed a new heart murmur, dismissed an elderly woman's complaints of a toothache because I didn't understand jaw pain as a symptom of cardiac ischemia, missed a few new orders and new labs . . . stuff every new grad does. And when I was getting nothing but negative feedback, I was sure my colleagues were picking on me. They weren't. They were giving me the valuable feedback I needed to improve my practice, and when I looked at myself, altered my response to feedback and used it to improve my practice, my practice improved. As I got more comfortable in my job, I started taking the time to greet my co-workers and stop to chat with them for a moment before report or when I encountered them in the med room. Slowly, they began to like me. Not because THEY changed, but because *I* did.

"Nurses eat their young" seems to be the go-to excuse for every new nurse who doesn't wish to take a closer look at what she is bringing to the table with all of these negative interactions with coworkers, examine her own practice and admit that she may have made errors or even that she DID make an enormous error. If I can call all of my new colleagues "bullies" or claim that they "eat their young," I don't have to take a look at what I am doing wrong. Sadly, that happens more and more often these days.

We're doing our new nurses a grave disservice by priming them to enter a profession where they will be eaten by bullies when the truth is that if you do not go into the profession looking for bullies, you're unlikely to find them. We're doing our new colleagues a disservice by providing such a handy way to dismiss negative feedback and uncomfortable interactions as "not our fault" because "everyone knows that nurses eat their young." People who discard all negative feedback as the result of a bully trying to put them down fail to learn and fail to grow in their practice. Many decide they hate nursing and leave (only to find the same problems elsewhere) or to pursue graduate education somehow believing that NPs and CRNAs are immune from awkward interactions with colleagues or negative feedback.

Perhaps nursing schools should provide a class in how to handle negative feedback because so many new nurses react to it as though they've been attacked, no matter how valid or obvious the feedback or how carefully timed and worded.

Not every nurse is adept at teaching, excels at giving negative feedback or is even a nice person. But failing to recognize that you own a part of the problems you're having isn't a way to grow as a nurse or as a person.

Thank you for your assessment of my character.

Had you asked me forty years ago if nurses ate their young, I might have answered fervently in the affirmative. I was a brand new nurse getting started and had a very rough start. My co-workers didn't like me -- not that I was likable then. I got a LOT of negative feedback because I made a lot of mistakes. I missed a new heart murmur, dismissed an elderly woman's complaints of a toothache because I didn't understand jaw pain as a symptom of cardiac ischemia, missed a few new orders and new labs . . . stuff every new grad does. And when I was getting nothing but negative feedback, I was sure my colleagues were picking on me. They weren't. They were giving me the valuable feedback I needed to improve my practice, and when I looked at myself, altered my response to feedback and used it to improve my practice, my practice improved. As I got more comfortable in my job, I started taking the time to greet my co-workers and stop to chat with them for a moment before report or when I encountered them in the med room. Slowly, they began to like me. Not because THEY changed, but because *I* did.

"Nurses eat their young" seems to be the go-to excuse for every new nurse who doesn't wish to take a closer look at what she is bringing to the table with all of these negative interactions with coworkers, examine her own practice and admit that she may have made errors or even that she DID make an enormous error. If I can call all of my new colleagues "bullies" or claim that they "eat their young," I don't have to take a look at what I am doing wrong. Sadly, that happens more and more often these days.

We're doing our new nurses a grave disservice by priming them to enter a profession where they will be eaten by bullies when the truth is that if you do not go into the profession looking for bullies, you're unlikely to find them. We're doing our new colleagues a disservice by providing such a handy way to dismiss negative feedback and uncomfortable interactions as "not our fault" because "everyone knows that nurses eat their young." People who discard all negative feedback as the result of a bully trying to put them down fail to learn and fail to grow in their practice. Many decide they hate nursing and leave (only to find the same problems elsewhere) or to pursue graduate education somehow believing that NPs and CRNAs are immune from awkward interactions with colleagues or negative feedback.

Perhaps nursing schools should provide a class in how to handle negative feedback because so many new nurses react to it as though they've been attacked, no matter how valid or obvious the feedback or how carefully timed and worded.

Not every nurse is adept at teaching, excels at giving negative feedback or is even a nice person. But failing to recognize that you own a part of the problems you're having isn't a way to grow as a nurse or as a person.

Like I said above, not ALL nurses eat their young. I'd say a majority don't and are helpful to young nurses. But some are awful and are dismissive and haughty. That's probably a fact in every industry, but I wouldn't know, I can only speak for healthcare.

I agree. They were wrong to pretend they could predict your future based on the crappy experience they gave you. Let that bad job go and focus on your future.

I would not feel compelled to list this on my resume or even "check the box" on future job applications. Who knows what really happened? In my experience, most of the nonsense that goes on in nursing is interpersonal. One person's word or perception against another. Typically a "she said, she said".

We all can learn from others, and keep learning throughout our careers.

Just for whoever cares, no other field does this. In other fields, you would be assumed to be competent after passing A and P, and passing the boards. You would be assumed to be minimally competent and proficient. Yes, as a novice, but competent.

As a competent professional, no one would be searching for reasons to find fault with you, any way they possibly can. Which is what happens in nursing, and the reason I am no longer in it.

Oh Snap!