Time to don the fireproof underwear. It is 0500 and the reality alarm clock is ringing, and some people do not like to hear it go off. So whether you agree with me or not, I feel it is time to inject a little thought provoking ideas into your life.
I am sure I am about to get flamed for posting this, but I feel the need to anyways. I have been seeing these threads talking about bullying and teachers or preceptors hating the students, and new nurses or abusing them because of some perceived slight or injustice. Well guess what?
The world is a hard cold nasty place that does not need to be polite to you or worry whether your feelings got hurt and you feel offended. You need to grow up and realize that the abuse that you claim is rampant, or the bullying that you experience all the time is not their problem, but rather your problem.
I see so many posts about this and I wonder how some of these people have survived as long as they have. School is tough? Deal with it. You think that someone else is getting it easier? Well too bad, they may be but no one ever promised you everything would be fair. You have to learn that there is inequality in life. It's how you overcome that inequality that matters. It teaches perseverance.
Abusive teachers? Maybe they are trying to get the best in you to come out. What you think is abuse maybe is pushing you to your limits, to get you further along in your potential. So your feelings got hurt at school, grow up, feelings get hurt every day.
Your preceptor is unorganized and does not like you and bad mouths you to your manager, and all your patients love you but no one at the hospital sees how great you really are?
Well your preceptor may actually have great time management skill, but when having to slow down and teach someone their job, things do tend to get disorganized. You may be part of the blame there.
Did you ever stop to think that you are the proverbial monkey wrench in a well oiled machine? The need to teach you, and I realize you do need to learn, can be very time consuming. They may tell your manager that you need improving or that you are not advancing fast enough. They may be all smiles to you, because they want to support you and keep you positive, but they need to tell the manager how you really are.
Speaking of orientation, how often have I seen statements that say the other nurses are not supportive and will not answer questions. Have you ever thought that maybe you are asking TOO MANY questions?
After a bit it may seem that you are not retaining the info provided and everyone gets tired of answering the same questions over and over. Part of learning is knowing when to shut your mouth and just watch. It has been said by people wiser than me that the only question you should ask is the question that you already know the answer to. If that does not make sense to you, think about it for a while and you might just be surprised that a light comes on.
So basically what i am saying is grow up and act like the adult that you are. Life is not fair, school is not fair, work is not fair. You just have to learn to deal with it.
I get what you're saying, but I oriented on an ICU where I could count on less than one hand the number of nurses on that unit that *weren't* scumbags. The ICU I work now is completely different. Sometimes it *is* the crappy unit and the bad nurses that work it.
For the record, I certainly got the very most possible out of my 60s and 70s experience :) :yelclap:. And my kids learned to take their consequences without expecting helicoptering/excusing from me, and are functional and hard-working young parents themselves. So when I run into younger people their age (or younger) no, I have no patience for the navel-gazing and the special-snowflakiness, because it's something that somebody taught them... and that they can unlearn.
Did you read my whole post green tea? You only quoted part of it and your response seemed to imply that I was accusing you, personally, of bad parenting! My comment certainly was in no way directed at you in particular!
If you read the rest of my post, you'll see that I go on to state that the younger generation engages in the same obnoxious behaviors as the older one, and that the culture of nursing as a whole needs uplifting.
Laziness and poor teamwork crosses generations. And, nursing resembles Jr High too much, and needs a higher level of professionalism in behavior and manners. The result will strengthen teamwork and have better outcomes for pts.
Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
I'm curious as to what you read in the OP's post that led you to conclude that "the OP is probably a great preceptor." ?
I've seen this written on AN before by other posters as well- e.g. "Susie a great nurse." (Direct quote, but name changed) Derived from an anonymous post!
I'm baffled every time I see something like this- on an online anonymous forum.
I form impressions about a lot of people on this board who either have been here for a long time or have a large number of posts. I don't think, based on many of the exchanges between people on this board, that tendency is unusual. Sometimes the thumbnail sketches of my personality people come up with make me laugh!
Kyrshamarks doesn't pretty up his language style, but he's got a lot of experience and the actual content of what he writes is substantive. I just think that would translate into a great preceptor.
Again, you don't know what I've experienced so I am not sure what point you are to prove here, fine or not. It's beyond offensive when people tell victims of these things that they don't know what they are, by defining them.
YOU may have been bullied. We weren't there. But just because you were bullied doesn't mean everyone here that's complained about it has been. If you were bullied, instead of being exasperated with everyone that's tired of hearing whining about minor personality conflicts being described as bullying, be exasperated with those who have cried wolf so many times that we're skeptical of such claims.
I am an older student, 40, currently in an ADN program at a community college. My cohort is made up of a mixture of ages. I've actually been surprised how much this class complains-- about everything. The teacher is incompetent, clinicals are a joke, we don't have enough information... blah, blah, blah. Suck it up kids! Deal with it! Make it work! Attitude is everything and if you go into a class, lab or clinical with a bad attitude or an attitude of entitlement you're going to have a bad experience... period. Life if what you make of it and no body owes you anything. I admit, I get annoyed at times, everybody does... but I keep it to myself. If I am working with a nurse one day at clinicals that i think is a little less than helpful I really don't blame her/him. I see them running around like a dog chasing its tail and wonder how they get it all done AND still deal with me. I help the best i can, I observe and I listen. I am old enough to know that nobody can bully me unless I let them, I am not a victim-- ever. Have some respect for these educators and nurses that have been around the block more than a few times, you just might learn something.
I went to nursing school when I was 40 (just a few years ago), and us older students had the same reaction to the younger students' attitudes. It's definitely a generation gap. The sense of entitlement the 20-somethings had was frightening.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
Agreed. But it goes BOTH ways. You have earn respect in order to receive respect. Like another poster said, respect shouldn't be given based on how many years of experience you have. Everyone should be respected from new grads, to janitors, to dietary personnel, doctors, patients, etc. I was brought up to respect everyone, not just based on how old they are or their experience.
There's more than one kind of respect. Obviously, you should respect everyone and behave respectfully toward those who haven't blatantly proven they don't deserve it. But there is also the respect you have for someone who has been there, done that, done it well and lived to tell the story. Someone who has proven herself over and over. There's the respect you have for someone who does the job well, someone you can learn from. That's a different level of respect and please don't tell me that even new grads deserve that level of respect. They have yet to prove themselves.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
Again, you don't know what I've experienced so I am not sure what point you are to prove here, fine or not. It's beyond offensive when people tell victims of these things that they don't know what they are, by defining them.
We only know what you chose to share here. But rape has a very specific, legal definition. It's a crime. Not every interaction in which you didn't think someone was as nice to you as you deserve is an episode of bullying. Comparing "bullying' to rape devalues the experience of victims of true rape. So please. Stop the analogy of "blaming the rape victim."
And do yourself the enormous kindness of taking some time now for self examination. If you (the general you) have been the "victim" of "bullying" over and over, you really need to think about what YOU are bringing to the table. Sometimes the reason for all these negative interactions isn't all of those other people, but YOU.
Again, I don't need someone telling me what I'm or others are supposed to feel and how to respond to those feelings when being physically or mentally bullied.
Many bullied victims try to "ignore" the problem until they can't anymore. What type of "response" are you saying the victim should have? Just further "deal with it" as they have been and the OP suggests?
The point is there is no point in making the bully the victim, much like making the rapist the victim. These responses further perpetuates that, and that's a problem.
I have to agree. No one should HAVE to deal with co-workers who are mean, degrading, demoralizing, or rude. We are all adults in a professional workplace where things are NOT about us, it is about the patients. Period.
That a co-worker is unable to conduct themselves professionally is no one's fault or problem but their own.
The first "law" of mentoring/precepting should be "TA-DA--THIS is your reference library. Clinical skills books, medication books--it is all here for you!! I WILL show you, I WILL ask you to review the procedure, then I WILL ask you to do it yourself. This way YOUR practice will improve". "I will be correcting things, cause that's why they pay me the big bucks. But I have your back at the end of the day".
If they are asking 952 times how to hang IV fluid, then perhaps there's a huge disconnect. That may not work in the real world of nursing. If they cry "foul" when they are corrected, again it is a "remember day 1? I have your back, but I am gonna make you think. Goal is no one dies on our shift, unless they are supposed to". Period.
We are all professionals. We should all be acting as such.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
No, we don't know what you've experienced and no one here is addressing what you've experienced, so none of these posts are about you personally. So please don't be offended when we speak in generalities.
The fact is, most of us have encountered people who cry "bully!" every time they're told something they don't want to hear. This is an affront to anyone who has actually been bullied. Rape is a horrendous experience, and when people compare any unpleasant interaction to being raped, they are way over the top and need to be called out on it.
Wish I could "like" this one a few dozen more times!
For the record, I certainly got the very most possible out of my 60s and 70s experience :) :yelclap:. And my kids learned to take their consequences without expecting helicoptering/excusing from me, and are functional and hard-working young parents themselves. So when I run into younger people their age (or younger) no, I have no patience for the navel-gazing and the special-snowflakiness, because it's something that somebody taught them... and that they can unlearn.
One of my all-time favorite posts ! I wish I had a "love" button to click, because I really love this
I form impressions about a lot of people on this board who either have been here for a long time or have a large number of posts. I don't think, based on many of the exchanges between people on this board, that tendency is unusual. Sometimes the thumbnail sketches of my personality people come up with make me laugh!
Kyrshamarks doesn't pretty up his language style, but he's got a lot of experience and the actual content of what he writes is substantive. I just think that would translate into a great preceptor.
Okay. Fair enough. I wasn't trying to single you out, but curious, since I've seen it here before.
Some people can appear really confident in the real world, and on here, and confidence doesn't equal competence.
I am a new grad nurse, 4 weeks into a 12 week orientation on a Neuro/stepdown unit. My preceptor is a nurse with over 20 years worth of experience, and she is a great nurse. However, I would be lying if I didn't say she is at times really difficult to deal with. There is not much in the way of positive feedback, but if I did something wrong I get read the riot act. I can't tell for sure if she truly hates me, like she makes me feel. She is at times belittling and deliberately embarrasses me in front of patients. Even though this does hurt my feelings, I just laugh it off, even though on the inside I am mortified and just want to die. I hate to ask her questions, even though I have to ask, because ultimately I want to make sure that I am not going to make a mistake just because I was afraid to ask. I put up with all of this, because I know that no matter where I work, there is always going to be that one nurse that I just don't get along with. There are going to be patients or family members that are going to make me feel intimidated just like she does. I suck it up, I smile and nod, and try very hard not to cry. Just like I can do anything for 12 hours, I can do anything for 8 more weeks. Bottom line, it's hard to be a new nurse. The learning curve is very steep and I feel like Dory in "Finding Nemo" *Just keep swimming....* :)
VANurse2010
1,526 Posts
I get what you're saying, but I oriented on an ICU where I could count on less than one hand the number of nurses on that unit that *weren't* scumbags. The ICU I work now is completely different. Sometimes it *is* the crappy unit and the bad nurses that work it.