Is it wrong to expect kindness?

I believe in kindness, in treating everyone like they are a valuable member of society. I expect to be treated with kindness and respect, I expect consideration and understanding especially from nurse colleagues. Am I wrong? Nurses Announcements Archive

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Kindness is a topic I keep seeing in emails and on bulletin boards; being kind to others, being kind to ourselves. In my big city Midwest hospital, I see kindness quotes on the wall by the time clock, in the break room, at the bottom of every email I receive. Often I feel as staff nurses we are not very kind to one another even with all these reminders everywhere.

Definition of kindness: the quality of being friendly, generous and considerate.

Antonyms of kindness include thoughtlessness, intolerance, meanness, selfishness, cruelty, ill will.

Synonyms of kindness include courtesy, decency, goodwill, graciousness, hospitality, tolerance, patience, understanding, consideration, tact, and thoughtfulness.

One morning a few weeks ago I left the unit feeling very underappreciated. I had been treated with disdain and disrespect when I tried to give report. My report had been interrupted by three phone calls made by the nurse to whom I was giving report, only one relative to the patient we were discussing. As I tried to continue with report, I was interrupted multiple times with questions whose answers I had already given; my listener wasn't listening. Sadly this situation has occurred before to me, although not to this degree.

As I walked away that morning, I heard the nurse I had given report to telling another nurse what a bad job I had done taking care of this patient; I left after a very frustrating experience with tears in my eyes, feeling judged and humiliated. My night had been very busy and the entire area I was working in was very busy, and we were understaffed as well. My patient had taken a turn for the worse just a few hours into my 12-hour shift. I hadn't had a lot of help when I needed it, hadn't taken more than two bathroom breaks and had no meal break at all. I was thirsty, hungry and tired and very worried about my patient who was getting sicker as the night flew by. I had dealt with MDs who couldn't understand my concern, another patient to care for and the very scared looking parents of my patient who were asking me lots of questions about why their baby's heart rate kept dropping and why all her milk was leaking from around her gastrostomy tube. I dealt with surgery staff who told me to continue the feedings even when the milk was pouring out around the tube. I drew blood samples and hoped the results would help me convince not all was well with my patient.

And this nurse couldn't listen to me for even 30 minutes.

This led me to consider my own report receiving behaviors; do I listen? do I interrupt with wild abandon? are others frustrated after giving me report? I'm going to be especially aware of these things over the next few months and making changes to my own report listening skills as I go along. Now I'm acutely aware of my listening skills, have tried to wait to ask questions until the end of the report, to make eye contact and be friendly and supportive.

It's great to ask questions; that's how we clarify information and instructions; however, constantly interrupting is not helpful as it destroys concentration and may prevent accurate and concise report. Something vital could be lost or forgotten and as nurses, we realize that every little detail is important. As nurses we need to lift each other up, to support and encourage, to acknowledge that each of us brings valuable skills to our shared patients and workplace. We need to be kind to one another.

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Specializes in Critical Care; Cardiac; Professional Development.

The main thing that stands out to me here is "she couldn't even listen to me for 30 minutes". 30 minutes to give report is absurd. Hopefully that was due to your being interrupted? If that were the norm I would probably be trying to get to the salient points too, as that is an insanely long amount of time.

Kindness matters, but this falls more in the category of professionalism. I am sorry that happened to you on such a difficult night. It had to have been really difficult to deal with.

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Specializes in Travel, Home Health, Med-Surg.

Sorry for your bad night. I agree with above poster that we should all show kindness to each other but this does sound like a professional issue. Nurses have different styles of giving and getting report and at times it can be frustrating on both ends. I also agree 30 minutes sounds like a long time for report on 1 patient, is this your unit norm? Just certain nurse? I worked with a nurse once who liked the long drawn out report with every detail she could drag out of me, I think she wanted the minute details so she didn't have to do her own assessment. Either way it is always good to look at your behaviors and styles and try to improve yourself and work with others!

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Specializes in Critical Care, Med-Surg, Psych, Geri, LTC, Tele,.

My motto at work is to treat others how I want to be treated. That is, with kindness.

I try very hard not to treat others badly, which I've been on the receiving end of, more than once.

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I think we all have days when we feel unappreciated. I had one not too long ago. I thought I was going to lose it on the oncoming shift. I had worked my butt off all day.

But, I will say unless there is a ton that needs to be passed on, 30 minutes is too long for report. I have had patients go south at shift change. Sometimes I get a ton of orders 5 minutes before shift change due to a change in patient status. That's the only time it should even remotely take you that long on one patient.

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Yes in response to the thirty minutes, I work in an NICU, both of my patients were pretty unstable and I was interrupted many times during this particular report.

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Wrote my reply yesterday and decided to mull it over before posting. Anyway, FWIW:

My night had been very busy and the entire area I was working in was very busy, and we were understaffed as well. My patient had taken a turn for the worse just a few hours into my 12-hour shift. I hadn't had a lot of help when I needed it, hadn't taken more than two bathroom breaks and had no meal break at all. I was thirsty, hungry and tired and very worried about my patient who was getting sicker as the night flew by. I had dealt with MDs who couldn't understand my concern, another patient to care for and the very scared looking parents of my patient who were asking me lots of questions about why their baby's heart rate kept dropping and why all her milk was leaking from around her gastrostomy tube. I dealt with surgery staff who told me to continue the feedings even when the milk was pouring out around the tube. I drew blood samples and hoped the results would help me convince not all was well with my patient.

And this nurse couldn't listen to me for even 30 minutes.

*****

I see your entire post as being less about unkindness than about the general stress of this setting, which we all have to deal with.

Less-than-ideal treatment of each other and the reports/complaints of such, have chronically become a matter of everyone "kicking the dog" so-to-speak, which refers to various ways of taking stressors out on whomever happens to be nearby.

Part of our apparently perpetual problem with kindness is both 1) actual unkind actions and 2) the unreasonable expectations of all involved.

The premise "after *I've* done a, b, c, d, e and fought with f, g, h and i, and missed out on j, k, and l, and worried about m-z, this nurse couldn't even do 'one simple little thing'..." is problematic. I am convinced it is part of the problem.

This nurse obviously should not have treated you this way, especially the part about critiquing and badmouthing your efforts after the fact. At some point I would've just looked exhausted and said, "{Name}, nothing is ideal here. I have done the best I could. I've had a challenging shift and I know you're facing a challenging shift, too. Let's just acknowledge that and work together. Can we please get through report and I will show you the same kindness when I receive report from you?..." That is how I handle those situations where the Savior of the World is critiquing what I've accomplished. It's quite effective because it throws people off and helps lower everyone's guard. And, more importantly, it is the truth. It is addressing a situation genuinely instead of the toxic pattern of 1) becoming stressed 2) bottling up frustrations 3) sparing some people the brunt of our frustrations and then 4) expecting some uninvolved party to soothe our own emotions, when 5) they are facing the same exact stressful scenario we just made it through.

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One more thing - I will disclose my bias here. I think many of the conversations about peers' lack of kindness is a bit of a joke in the face of the other difficulties you described, which are systemic issues that flow largely from decision-making that does not involve us. Our choice to peck at each other is almost always misdirected. It amounts to focusing on small potatoes, IMHO.

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Thank you JKL33 for the thorough critique.

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I expect to be treated with kindness and respect, I expect consideration and understanding especially from nurse colleagues. Am I wrong?

You're not wrong; but you're likely to be disappointed. It seems you're adhering to social contract your colleagues haven't necessarily signed off on. Your bound to be let down if you expect everyone to be like you and see things as you do.

In the face of the difficult shift - and possibly your unit's culture - it would of course lessen stress if everyone treated each other in a supportive way. But not everyone does, or will, exemplify that value. How you respond to that is key to your ultimate sense of being OK and satisfied with your work.

I've found that asking for what I need in ways other commenters have suggested is helpful. When I stopped just universally expecting certain behaviors and started asking for them, I got more of what I needed.

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Specializes in ER.

This is one thing I prefer about the ER. We are so used to starting from scratch with patients that report is never the tense experience that I frequently encountered when I worked on the inpatient side of things.

On the one hand you have a tired nurse ready to go home after a long shift, on the other an often cranky one, having rushed out the door, who hasn't had her coffee. That is a recipe for discord.

I remember a few nurses who were incredibly rude, inconsiderate, or confrontational during report. Ugh! And, interrupting handoff with personal calls? The is utterly disrespectful and obnoxious.

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Sorry for your bad night. I agree with above poster that we should all show kindness to each other but this does sound like a professional issue. Nurses have different styles of giving and getting report and at times it can be frustrating on both ends. I also agree 30 minutes sounds like a long time for report on 1 patient, is this your unit norm? Just certain nurse? I worked with a nurse once who liked the long drawn out report with every detail she could drag out of me, I think she wanted the minute details so she didn't have to do her own assessment. Either way it is always good to look at your behaviors and styles and try to improve yourself and work with others!

I have had those reports as well, History up to and including the uneventful appy patient had in 1962...

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