What would you do?

Buck 227 and Jay Jay thanks for your kind words. I'm in the process of searching the archives; continue to find interesting topics and become sidetracked. It will be interesting to read of other "new grad stupids".

Suzy K - your post about your friend was chilling - still getting goosebumps. Makes it more important than ever to be kind and supportive of each other. You never know what comment or action might put someone over the edge.

Buck I am happy you got outta there. I don't know how long you could have functioned anyway, in such a hostile environment.

You mentioned above how some colleagues can be so nasty to one another.

I have a very sad story. My classmate from nursing school who double majored in nursing and fine arts, was a very talented artist, top in our class, flunked her NCLEX the first time. At the same time, she was working as a GN on a Med-Surg floor. After flunking her boards once they decreased her pay and demoted her to a NA. Her preceptor was just plain NASTY to her. Pulled all the stops from badmouthing her personally to how bad BSN programs are. She was so miserable everytime we saw her, we encouraged her to quit.

She did quit, but not after slipping into a horrible, horrible depression. It took her alot to even take boards again. I would like to tell you that she did pass on the second try, but she never found out because on January 1, 2000, she took her own life.

Sure she probably had a multitude of problems that led her down that ultimate path, the nurse who was precepting her certainly did not help her in any way. My friend was made to feel useless, stupid and worthless, unable to even chart vital signs without a co-signature.

It's horrible what we do to each other - because the world just lost one damn good nurse and one kind hearted person.

Susy K, that is very sad. We had the same thing happened to us as nursing students in my last semester. (Maybe someone should investigate suicides or suicide attempts in nursing school). We had a new (male) student that was in our last semester of nursing school. (He had failed the previous semester). None of us knew him, but I thought we were friendly enough, but we had formed our own close knit buddies by then. I remember talking to him, he seemed very sweet and helpful to me as far as what he had learned from previous semester. All I remember next is going to our next clinical and having to go to ER and hearing that a gunshot wound was coming in. You guessed it. It was our fellow student coming in dead with a gunshot wound to the heart. We all had counselers coming to our nursing classes. I can't even imagine what these high school kids are going thru with all these shootings.

Buck, I'm glad you found another position elsewhere. This is the kind of petty nonsense which contributes toward passive-aggressive behavior in nurses. It is deplorable.

I think I would demand a meeting with the supervisors and co-workers to be in the same area at the same time and discuss the importence of team nursing and open communication.I also would state that I would be putting this in wrightng to the hospital administer also or hospital corperation.I would almost bet this type of behavior would immediatly stop.

I'd be willing to bet this is the antic of a pathetic boss. Any worthwhile boss would have never handled the situation the way yours did. I had a boss that used incidences like the one you described to keep the staff at one another. I always felt like she did this to keep the focus away from her; to keep the staff from uniting against her.

something I learned a long time ago. You have team nursing, primary care nursing and competion nursing . These nurses are into "I'm better than anyone else" as for unsigned notes under the door, does this person have a boss? maybe she needs a note.