A new grad, young nurse landed her DREAM job. Or what she thought would be her dream job in ICU. After orientation and on her own, she quit and said she thought she was dangerous and could kill a patient. The training was poor and the bullying was second to worst I have seen. That day she went home and gave up her life. Later, her parents notified the floor/ unit.
Now, obviously not every nurse under these circumstances has the same outcome. But, what can be done to change the (mean-girl- middle school) culture on floor? Who do you complain to? Who recognizes this as an issue with not just that nurse but many whom have left the floor for the same reasons?
How do you cope, who should be there to help nurses cope? Has this happened where you work?
I think nursing schools need to do a better job of teaching coping skills without that ridiculous Nurses Eat Their Young business. Teach them how to get in there roll up their sleeves and learn how to be nurses from experienced nurses. Nurses love to teach new nurses if they come in with the attitude, Show me what I need to know and how to do it. If new nurses can't handle the stress they should leave the profession and not blame the "older nurses" for their failures.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
I think nursing schools need to do a better job of teaching coping skills without that ridiculous Nurses Eat Their Young business. Teach them how to get in there roll up their sleeves and learn how to be nurses from experienced nurses. Nurses love to teach new nurses if they come in with the attitude, Show me what I need to know and how to do it. If new nurses can't handle the stress they should leave the profession and not blame the "older nurses" for their failures.
Or any kind of a job teaching coping skills without that ridiculous NETY business. I'm not sure that I was taught any coping skills in nursing school 40 years ago, nor was my husband 35 years ago. We were a different generation, however, and grew up learning coping skills. Perhaps because we both grew up in poor families, or perhaps because in the 50s children weren't coddled, we learned coping skills well before college.
If new nurses cannot handle the stress, blaming older nurses or "crusty old bats" for their failures exhibits an appalling lack of coping skills. Because you're right -- we love to teach new nurses who come in with an attitude of ownership and willingness to learn. Teaching new nurses who have no coping skills just makes me hate precepting, however.
I still haven't seen anyone present compelling data that actual suicides among new nurses (allegedly partially due to cruel co workers) has become anything close to a "trend."
Below is copied from Pubmed, and is just one of dozens of studies confirming higher risk of suicide among nurses.
To dismiss this topic as not valid because the person referred to it as a "trend" is splitting hairs. I also would like to add, many of the replies on this thread, and others, scream of passive agressive anger and the down right nastiness, and bullying that is pervasive in our profession today. So many of you can't even see it, but the tone of your replies, on this whole site frankly, reveals it all. That is a bunch of burned out, jaded, passive agressive, miserable nurses. Yep, I said it, and the lateral violence has to stop. If you can't take the heat get out of the kitchen, and stop taking out your stress and lousy attitudes on each other. It's about the patients after all, and I know you transfer that lousy attitude to everyone you work with and treat. One rotten apple spoils the whole bunch. Best of all, you will prove my point when you reply to this post. Guarantee 99% of the responses are negative and hostile. Just like the same negativity you dish out every day when you go to work and perpetuate lateral violence, but claim it's not an issue. For the nurses who can identify with my feelings in this post, put your foot down, speak up. This practice has to stop. It's time we come together; after all we need each other for support because nursing is not going to get any easier and the profession is suffering. We need to start supporting each other, instead of undermining one another. Ok, let the raging, angry replies begin!
1. Crisis. 2015 Feb 23:1-11. [Epub ahead of print]
Background: Research shows that there is a high prevalence of suicide among
nurses. Despite this, it has been 15 years since the last literature review on
the subject was published. Aim: The aim of this article is to review the
knowledge currently available on the risk of suicide among nurses and on
contributory risk factors. Method: A search was conducted in electronic databases
using keywords related to prevalence and risk factors of suicide among nurses.
The abstracts were analyzed by reviewers according to selection criteria.
Selected articles were submitted to a full-text review and their key elements
were summarized. Results: Only nine articles were eligible for inclusion in this
review. The results of this literature review highlight both the troubling high
prevalence of suicide among nurses as well as the persistent lack of studies that
examine this issue. Conclusion: Considering that the effects of several factors
related to nurses' work and work settings are associated with high stress,
distress, or psychiatric problems, we highlight the relevance of investigating
work-related factors associated with nurses' risk of suicide. Several avenues for
future studies are discussed as well as possible research methods.
DOI: 10.1027/0227-5910/a000305
PMID: 25708252 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
I also did not see the posts that were removed, but as it stands, your post is actually the "nastiest" in this entire thread. And your attempts to bully the readers into submitting to your POV are duly noted.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
You don't internet much, do you.
This is kind of the tone that i see as very normal across the many forums I've participated in since I was 14 years old. Horse ones, nurse ones, wedding ones, baby ones, general interest ones. People tend to be pretty blunt. I personally prefer bluntness to handling everyone with kid gloves and beating around the bush. True cruelty is still very much frowned upon pretty much everywhere but maybe the more darker corners of 4chan.
To act like we should all agree on everything (or at least, all agree on your opinion) just because we're all nurses or all mothers or whatever is infantilizing. I didn't see nastiness or passive aggressiveness (though I missed seeing the thread before it got cleaned up, I'm sure due to true cruelty as described above from spouse). The attitude that I do see here that troubles me, shown in the very title of this thread, is that the nurse in question came to the fate that she did because she was weak of character or a trend within a certain generation. You are seemingly here not for a discussion, but for head pats for bringing this issue to light. Questioning articles, studies, etc is a good sign that there is some critical thinking going on, which is essential for nursing.
I appreciate the study but it sounds like its main conclusion is "there are not enough studies and there should be more". Not exactly groundbreaking.
Edit: reading the post I quoted I thought it was OP, and I went back to check, and it isn't. My apologies. The rest of my post still stands I think.
Kudos for reading through that giant wall of text (which I admit I just skipped over because it looked so daunting) closely enough to respond to individual points.
The Internet can be cruel, and this forum is one of the nicer ones. Folks here getting all bent out of shape because another poster was "mean" or "rude" to them always makes me wonder what happens to their tender feelings in the real world. There are always those posters who act as if we should all agree with their opinion -- because we're all nurses and all compassionate all of the time -- or for some other reason. There are always those posters who get bent out of shape when someone disagrees with them and starts throwing out those wonderful "I wouldn't want YOU for my nurse" or "you must be a bully if you disagree with me" comments. There are always the posters who cannot handle a conversation but must instead have head pats.
I haven't noticed any trend of suicide among newer nurses, nor has their been any research posted which suggests that this is an actual trend, much less that it is a trend caused by cruel older nurses picking on the young nurse.
As noted, the nastiest post I've seen so far is the one you've quoted.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
Below is copied from Pubmed, and is just one of dozens of studies confirming higher risk of suicide among nurses.
To dismiss this topic as not valid because the person referred to it as a "trend" is splitting hairs. I also would like to add, many of the replies on this thread, and others, scream of passive agressive anger and the down right nastiness, and bullying that is pervasive in our profession today. So many of you can't even see it, but the tone of your replies, on this whole site frankly, reveals it all. That is a bunch of burned out, jaded, passive agressive, miserable nurses. Yep, I said it, and the lateral violence has to stop. If you can't take the heat get out of the kitchen, and stop taking out your stress and lousy attitudes on each other. It's about the patients after all, and I know you transfer that lousy attitude to everyone you work with and treat. One rotten apple spoils the whole bunch. Best of all, you will prove my point when you reply to this post. Guarantee 99% of the responses are negative and hostile. Just like the same negativity you dish out every day when you go to work and perpetuate lateral violence, but claim it's not an issue. For the nurses who can identify with my feelings in this post, put your foot down, speak up. This practice has to stop. It's time we come together; after all we need each other for support because nursing is not going to get any easier and the profession is suffering. We need to start supporting each other, instead of undermining one another. Ok, let the raging, angry replies begin!
1. Crisis. 2015 Feb 23:1-11. [Epub ahead of print]
Background: Research shows that there is a high prevalence of suicide among
nurses. Despite this, it has been 15 years since the last literature review on
the subject was published. Aim: The aim of this article is to review the
knowledge currently available on the risk of suicide among nurses and on
contributory risk factors. Method: A search was conducted in electronic databases
using keywords related to prevalence and risk factors of suicide among nurses.
The abstracts were analyzed by reviewers according to selection criteria.
Selected articles were submitted to a full-text review and their key elements
were summarized. Results: Only nine articles were eligible for inclusion in this
review. The results of this literature review highlight both the troubling high
prevalence of suicide among nurses as well as the persistent lack of studies that
examine this issue. Conclusion: Considering that the effects of several factors
related to nurses' work and work settings are associated with high stress,
distress, or psychiatric problems, we highlight the relevance of investigating
work-related factors associated with nurses' risk of suicide. Several avenues for
future studies are discussed as well as possible research methods.
DOI: 10.1027/0227-5910/a000305
PMID: 25708252 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
You find what you look for.
The fact that you seem to find so much passive aggressiveness, anger, nastiness and bullying says way more about YOU and what you look for in your interactions than it does about the people you encounter. If you were looking for kind, pleasant, POSITIVE interactions, that is what you would find.
Could we please be a little more respectful of the person that said there is a trend in nursing suicides? This is enough of a problem that ANA sponsored a presentation of the problem. It is one symptom of compassion fatigue. When we shame others of our profession we become part of the problem rather than part of the solution. I'm a doctoral candidate and I am researching compassion fatigue and eventhough I am well versed in research techniques finding this particular topic in the research is difficult.
Caroline123
84 Posts
In reply to Nursestorm, correct!!