So I was wondering if anyone here has/had told their head nurse or charge nurse or supervisor or manager that they are awful? What's your story? Is such a thing all right to be done?
These past few days, I feel like telling my head nurse that she's SO bad at training me but fortunately or unfortunately I can't speak to her. My tongue just gets tied.
I want to tell her to stop expecting me not to make any mistakes because I 99.9% do not know anything about dialysis. I want to tell her to stop scolding me as if she oriented me well to the unit. When I was new to the unit, she made me take vital signs and priming for at least a month and that killed my brain cells. And during those days, when I asked a question of why this and that, she would say later. There was even a time when she scolded my senior for teaching me about sodium profiles, and that just made me lose the desire to ask questions. Seriously, I still don't know all the options of a hemodialysis machine. I want to tell her to stop expecting me to be improved and fast on the job because she just or rather the whole area just lowers my morale and most of the time I lose my will to work and occasionally my will to live.
I am already stressed with patients that I can't please and can never please because of their first impression of me and all of head nurse's being just pushes me off my limit. It is so sad not to have support.
Anyway, there was a time that my tongue slid out a bit and I told her I want to be transferred to another area. She asked me at first "why" but when another mishap on my part occurred (a mishap that even the senior nurses experience) she was more the willing to transfer me. I think there was something else, a misunderstanding perhaps but I hated to tackle things with her. This just made me think less of her abilities of guiding new nurses.
And the sad part was she told me that I will be transferring on the very day that I got myself to view dialysis with love.
As a conclusion (did I even made sense?), before I leave the unit for another one this following month, I want to give her a review of her performance so that she'll improve herself however there is just this wall between us. I was thinking of telling our nursing department director so that she could tell her but it just doesn't seem right..... *sigh* I hate my work place...
Some of the responses to this thread are very interesting. Says a lot about the posters.
OP, I wish you luck as you move forward. Consider it all a learning experience, don't let it dampen your whole career. You ARE your own advocate, and it is best to do as much research as you can on your own, but some people really do just suck at teaching.
Funny thing, as staff nurses, we are evaluated by our managers, head nurses, DON's etc.
Do we ever get to evaluate these same people that evaluated us? I think it's time for a change! They are not perfect, they are human and so are we.
I know. And it's for their own good. Seriously.
@ diva_rn
Well, I'm most certainly not from an Arabic country and that is the kind of country I'm currently in :)
I do have language problems and I guess it's the main reason why my colleagues like to point me to this good English speaker that is unfortunately almost always not on my shift and when she is, she's busy most of the time. It's the same for my head nurse, she would send me out to attend lectures (unfortunately irrelevant to dialysis) when I was new. This same language problem makes it harder for me to trick those patients who hate me to re-think their opinion of me :)
As for the bias, I refuse to think I'm discriminated. :) I mean my head nurse is actually nice. I guess it's just that I'm the first inexperienced/untrained nurse they had for years. But she does have gender bias, if my male colleagues created a mess, I'm the one reprimanded because in their culture females are responsible for cleanliness.
I think she had locked her opinion on me now. Today she interrogated my patients if there is a problem and she asked them as if there is indeed a problem and that the patients just wont tell on me. Well there was no problem. *Sigh* How am I suppose to have high morale in my work environment?
If you'd like to give someone feedback, start with something positive. Tell her the things she did WELL.
NEVER, EVER tell anyone they suck or do something badly...esp when you are a subordinate.
You CAN tell them what things you NEED, or what OPPORTUNITIES there are. Example: Wow, that was a GREAT explanation, but I didn't follow it all. I really struggle with xyz, and I want to know more and understand it better. It would HELP ME a lot if we started with the basics. Perhaps you can tell me how you'd explain it to a patient?
Phrased this way, the fault is ON YOU, but you also articulate your needs and suggest a way it can be delivered....and MOST IMPORTANTLY indicate your WILLINGNESS and DESIRE to learn.
Just curious, are you a new nurse, or just new to this specialty? Sometimes when I am training a nurse who has been a nurse for 20 years, I expect them to know some things that I wouldn't expect from a brand new nurse, even if the 20 year nurse is new to my specialty. But then again, I love to teach, and I am not a fan of using "big" words to overwhelm my orientee's.
OP, sounds like you just were not receiving any sort of training.
Leaving or just expressing you wanted to was a good idea. Sometimes it's not all "nice". You just have to express your frustration. Has to be done because if you don't do that people just like to pretend nothing is wrong and they will ride that one forever and you will end up screwed. IF you were dumped out on your own, which, would have technically been soon, and you with no idea what the he!! to do. You would have been screwed. So, I am glad you began to back out.
Trying to tell anybody in nursing anything is a lost cause. Remember nurses are adults (supposed to be anyway). They choose to be what they are. Nobody changes really, there is no enlightenment or "Ah Ha" moment you will share with them. So, you see it is not worth it to go speak to someone who (let's be honest) knows what she is about.
Just show up to the new unit and try to start over.
You two may not have been a good fit for one another's teaching/learning style, but I'd hesitate to tell someone they suck in any language. It would speak poorly of you for one thing, and it sounds like you already have an uphill battle restoring your reputation. I'd thank her for her time and effort, and move on, the end.
Well, I'm most certainly not from an Arabic country and that is the kind of country I'm currently in :)
I do have language problems and I guess it's the main reason why my colleagues like to point me to this good English speaker that is unfortunately almost always not on my shift and when she is, she's busy most of the time. It's the same for my head nurse, she would send me out to attend lectures (unfortunately irrelevant to dialysis) when I was new. This same language problem makes it harder for me to trick those patients who hate me to re-think their opinion of me :)
As for the bias, I refuse to think I'm discriminated. :) I mean my head nurse is actually nice. I guess it's just that I'm the first inexperienced/untrained nurse they had for years. But she does have gender bias, if my male colleagues created a mess, I'm the one reprimanded because in their culture females are responsible for cleanliness.
I think she had locked her opinion on me now. Today she interrogated my patients if there is a problem and she asked them as if there is indeed a problem and that the patients just wont tell on me. Well there was no problem. *Sigh* How am I suppose to have high morale in my work environment?
This explains a lot. I mistakenly thought you were from another country and had emigrated to the USA and were experiencing the problems here....the fact that you are female in an Arabic country will elict bias alone...and I can see why perhaps this is more difficult in these circumstances...I don't think that any nurse in America can fully understand what you are dealing with in addition to the poor orientation/teaching style.
However, I do feel that since you are going to be transferred-just graciously take the transfer and go about your business...the head nurse may not act the same way toward a nurse from their own culture...so I would hesitate to say anything inflammatory to her...especially coming from a "foreigner" who is not of their mind set.
You do need to remember "your place" in their country...and culture...or their may be future more serious problems.
Specializes in Trauma Surgery, Nursing Management.
I agree with Clear...it sounds like your manager didn't put a whole lot of effort in orienting you, especially if you were just doing vitals and priming pumps for the first MONTH. Egads!
Let me make sure that I am clear in my understanding of your situation:
1. You were hired onto a unit in which you have ZERO experience.
2. When you asked your manager questions, she replied that she would answer them later, thus leaving you in an 'educational vacuum'.
3. When you gave up in your quest to get some guidance from your manager, you turned to another co-worker who was willing to do some teaching...and then your co-worker is reprimanded for doing so.
4. You were held to the standard of an experienced nurse, yet were not given a full orientation. You made mistakes, and were penalized for them instead of given a thorough demonstration of the CORRECT way to implement a procedure.
Does this sound like an accurate understanding of your post?
I am so glad that you are moving to another unit. It sounds like the leadership was quite absent on your current unit.
I strongly encourage you to get through these next 2 weeks (I am assuming that you are working a 2 week notice) without saying anything to your manager. Carry peace in your heart with the knowledge that you will become stronger and learn from this experience. You know what the pitfalls are now, and can avoid them on your next unit.
Furthermore, although it may be quite tempting, resist the urge to bad mouth your nurse manager. Despite the fact that she gave you a less than adequate orientation, any trash talking from you will only reflect poorly on you and your new co-workers will be leery of you. Go to your new unit with a fresh perspective and an open mind.
I am so sorry that you have had to struggle so much with this situation. It is never easy to find confidence in a new place, even WITH a good orientation. At our core, we as nurses have a strong need to be productive. It drives most of us NUTS to have no objective and no plan of action. It sounds like you were thrown to the wolves, and your manager didn't really care. I have experienced the very same thing, and I moved on within 3 months. It was the WORST experience of my career.
I wish you all the best in your new job. Remember to be positive and keep your mind focused on learning.
I have no experience with working in a country where the culture and language are different from my own, so I have nothing to offer in terms of that. I would just say that you should perhaps chalk it up to experience. I'm not saying that it's not ever appropriate to tell a supervisor what role they played in your failure in that unit, but you have to ask yourself what you would gain from it. Would it change anything for the next new nurse that comes along? Will the person take the advice to heart or will they use it to hold a grudge against you? If they do react badly, do you have someone higher up to go to for support if that happens?
I don't know how much of this was your fault and how much of it was a bad learning environment, but either way, you have to weigh the benefits and consequences of telling your supervisor the ways in which the system/people failed you. If there aren't any viable benefits, it might be best to just move on and hope for a better experience in the next unit. You're already on your way out of the current unit, so telling her what she did wrong isn't going to help you any. It would be different if you were going to stay and wanted better guidance from that person.
Good luck. You're a braver person than I am, working in a foreign country!
diva rn, BSN, RN
963 Posts
OP,
You mentioned you came to this "foreign" country...where are you from?
Is there a language problem as well? Is that where you feel the "bias" also came from?