What is up with the level of entitlement?

[sofla98]

I’m a seasoned nurse with a lot of years of experience. I work hard to take care of my patients and their basic needs, and then some. But what is up with these newer grads, like in their younger 20’s? The ones who started 2019-2020, bc something is way different. 

We’re all wondering what it is. 

They expect the charge nurses and other nurses to do their tasks/work for them and I’ve seen some actually whine, roll their eyes, etc. when they don’t get their way or they’re a little bit busy. 

It’s really starting to aggravate those of us over the age of 30, especially because if they don’t get their way they go to the manager and say “so and so didn’t help me enough” or “so and so wasn’t available and I couldn’t find them for an hour.”

I think it’s time I leave the hospital, to be honest. They are also incredibly hard to train. They don’t listen, get offended if you try to explain to them why something didn’t go well, or go complain to the manager. 

Our management is tired of it too. Is it the same personalities? Are they really that easily offended? Someone ELI5. Thanx. 

Don’t believe this is an issue? Just wait for the responses! LOL! 

[caliotter3]

21 minutes ago, Jedrnurse said:

I'm actually a proponent of making CNA certification be a prerequisite to nursing school.

I would go one further and make certification as well as a minimum of six months paid experience a prerequisite to nursing school.  I would also give more points (on an admission based on points system) to someone who had more than six months paid experience.

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

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[londonflo]

45 minutes ago, Jedrnurse said:

I'm actually a proponent of making CNA certification be a prerequisite to nursing school.

It has been at times. When the Obama administration was looking at the credit load for associate and bachelor's programs, it was stressed that 60 credits should be the top for ASN and 120 for BSN. Truly, the CNA requirement was removed at the school I taught at since our state (actuallyt public health) required a 6 credit course. Then all the PPE, vital signs, bedmaking had to be picked up again by the curriculum. Then the thinking changed and about 4 years ago, the CNA credits were okay and students could be required to have 68 credits or more for the degree. 

[speedynurse, ADN, BSN, RN, EMT-P]

56 minutes ago, cynical-RN said:

The schools and teachers who insist on vocational duties have created an epidemic of new graduate nurses who are primarily task-oriented and quite frequently incapable of thinking critically beyond tasks and figures. Looking at the pathophysiological state in the patients’ health on the continuum of wellbeing, including, but not limited to figures like labs, V/S et al, then putting together a plan should be the primary point of focus.

I think this holds a lot of truth. I do think learning tasks and time management is huge, but honestly I was very frustrated in nursing school. Partly because the focus was very different from paramedic school and partly because I don’t think I learned what I needed to learn. I am unbelievably grateful to have had the paramedic experience, my ER tech experience, and the support and advice of experienced nurses as a new grad in the ER or I think I would have crashed and burned in critical thinking and possibly contributed to patient deaths.....and that’s out of complete honesty. I know my nursing school experience wasn’t the worst but it wasn’t the best either. It consisted of passing meds, tasks like making beds, and looking up labs. While this is needed.....it doesn’t truly foster critical thinking, priorities, or how to save a crashing patient.

[Guest856929]

22 minutes ago, speedynurse said:

I think this holds a lot of truth. I do think learning tasks and time management is huge, but honestly I was very frustrated in nursing school. Partly because the focus was very different from paramedic school and partly because I don’t think I learned what I needed to learn. I am unbelievably grateful to have had the paramedic experience, my ER tech experience, and the support and advice of experienced nurses as a new grad in the ER or I think I would have crashed and burned in critical thinking and possibly contributed to patient deaths.....and that’s out of complete honesty. I know my nursing school experience wasn’t the worst but it wasn’t the best either. It consisted of passing meds, tasks like making beds, and looking up labs. While this is needed.....it doesn’t truly foster critical thinking, priorities, or how to save a crashing patient.

Indeed. You have nurses who have been trained to complete tasks and perhaps they know the normal values of the several figures that we deal with, but they often fail to think beyond that. There are too many examples to list. For instance, I have seen nurses get a potassium level of 6 and cannot think to turn the LR off or have a patient who was in A fib flip back to SR but hypotensive now and fail to shut of the cardizem gtt etc. Just nurses trained to complete tasks on a given square and almost paranoid to think outside that box. I have seen it with some new NPs thinking they can fix hypoxemia with just FI02 sans pressure to drive the oxygen. It is partly why I went back to grad school. The distinction between autonomy and authority was too apparent and the gaping chasm between the two often conflated concepts became to wide for me. 

[kbrn2002, ADN, RN]

On 1/8/2021 at 6:39 AM, TheDudeWithTheBigDog said:

Then, by law, they're owed a paycheck.  They are not there to work, they're there to learn.  After the first time you change sheets or do denture care, it's not exactly rocket surgery.  People get hired off the street and trained to do it.

Also, a student nurse that knows how to delegate the aide's job to the aides is going to be more valuable than a student nurse who learned "I have to do everything myself."

And I worked as both a CNA and a nurse.  So, speaking from experience, there is NO reason that the nurse should be doing the CNAs job in any regularity.  Now, if you're already in the room or you had downtime, yeah, be helpful.  But your medpass doesn't stop to do someone else's job.  Getting your assessments done for the shift doesn't take back seat to doing someone else's job.  Stop promoting this environment where we have to suck up to our CNAs.  They're there to do their job, just like everyone else in the building.  If they expect the nurses to have to help them do the bare minimum of what's expected from them, then they're working the wrong job.  Now, yeah, in some unusual cases, I've had to ask my nurses for help.  But a good 99% of the time, I was the one on top of my baths, and changes, and toileting, because that was MY job.

I can agree with you in theory. In reality though it never works. CNA's, RNA's, PCA's, PCT's...whatever the nursing assistants title is in your neck of the woods are some of the most overworked and underpaid employees there are.  In most places there is just simply too much on their plate and they are just as crazy busy as the nurse.  

I have worked with a few nurses that take delegation and that "it's not my job"  attitude to a disturbing level. Nothing annoys me more than the nurse that will spend 10 minutes looking for an aide to do something simple that would've taken that nurse just a minute or two just because it's the CNA's job.

[Jedrnurse, BSN, RN]

44 minutes ago, kbrn2002 said:

I have worked with a few nurses that take delegation and that "it's not my job"  attitude to a disturbing level. Nothing annoys me more than the nurse that will spend 10 minutes looking for an aide to do something simple that would've taken that nurse just a minute or two just because it's the CNA's job.

Yeah, it's very irritating. After all, delegation involves delegating aspects of your job to others.

[jeanbeth, MSN, DNP, RN]

I don't understand why it's okay to say "boomers are entitled" or "millennials are entitled". Would it be okay to say "blondes are entitled" or "blue-eyed men are entitled"? Please don't overgeneralize about people based on their year of birth. Kind of disappointed.

[amoLucia]

jeanbeth - great comment!