Trouble with New Grad Orientee

[FrancescaF]

I feel like I've exhausted my family and co-workers about the issues I have with my orientee. I'm reaching out to experience nurses and new grads to help me with my situation. I work at a very large hospital in Pre/Post. I'm an older nurse with only a year and a half experience in the nursing field. I have a new grad orientee currently that is 10 years my senior in age. She has been incredibly condescending, indignant, and generally annoying since day one. I have a true lack of experience in this field but have had an orientee put on my because I have a reputation to be extremely good with patients and kind, receptive to new nurses. She questions everything I do and say, attempts to correct my charting, invents problematic issues with patients. She is very intelligent and I respect her questions and continual desire to learn. But, I leave work everyday feeling resentful and irritated. How can I learn to cope better in this relationship and make it mutually beneficial and not shrouded in a passive-aggressive power struggle?

[JKL33]

It doesn't sound like she's doing anything particularly dangerous or negligent...

Except for not focusing on the bajillion-and-one things she doesn't know.

[AnnieOaklyRN, BSN, RN, EMT-P]

This is a silly question, BUT HAVE YOU ACTUALLY TALKED TO YOUR ORIENTEE ABOUT THIS?

Please stop venting to the world, because that will do no good, and start talking to the person you are having the problem with!! Sit her down in a private area, and yes you can even ask your manager or someone else to sit with you, and talk to her! Not all nurses, not your family, and not every staff nurse, talk to the person!!!

I recently had an issue with a co-worker and it has been ongoing for a year or more. I didn't vent to my family or staff, I talked to my nurse manager and then we all sat in her office and talked about it, and it was so very effective at resolving the problem!

Annie

[TriciaJ, RN]

It sounds like your orientee is showing you a whole lot of disrespect. Condescension? Correcting your charting? You need to have a come-to-Jesus talk with this person first. Remind her that you have made no claims of infallibility but you have been assigned to be her preceptor, not the other way around. When she has successfully passed her orientation and is off probation she can correct anyone she wants; meanwhile her focus is to be on her own performance; not anyone else's.

She might be "smart" but she clearly lacks emotional intelligence if she instantly starts alienating the people she needs for mentors. Remind her that her ultimate success as a nurse is highly attitude-dependent. Her clinical acumen will be of no use to her if you can always find her by following the trail of pissed-off people.

[SpankedInPittsburgh, DNP, RN]

What AnneOakley said. She hit Bullseye!!! Nurses often complain about problems except to everybody but the people involved and the people who can take steps to resolve the issue. Don't be one of those Nurses!!! AnneOakley YAY!!!

[closetoyou21, CNA]

Hey!!

Talk to the nurse first! Older nurses sometimes just do that when they have a younger preceptor brings on some insecurities for them that can result in a power struggle. Communication is key! Talk to her first. If it doesn't change the ascend the chain of command. A simple conversation can make a world of difference sometimes!