Why Is Compassion and Support missing in Nursing?

heron, ASN, RN · May 1

Umm ... over-generalize much?

Short answer: nurses are human. Also, manure rolls downhill.

See also "compassion fatigue".

Start the popcorn and pass the junior mints.

Steph1985 · May 2

Compassion fatigue? That's a no from the panel. If someone is experiencing compassion fatigue, they may need a long vacation—or to seriously reconsider whether nursing is the right career for them. This profession demands resilience, empathy, and consistent emotional presence.

Let's be clear: not all poor behavior can be blamed on compassion fatigue. Some people are simply making choices—to gossip, backstab, lie, stir drama, or create a toxic environment. That's not burnout; that's a lack of maturity and professionalism. We're talking about grown adults acting like unsupervised toddlers. Let's stop labeling bad behavior as something clinical. It's not always a condition—it's often a choice.

heron, ASN, RN · May 2

That popcorn done, yet?

You asked a question so over-generalized that it's practically meaningless. I gave some of the points that came immediately to mind as I read it. It was interesting to see how you filled in the blanks. We'll have to agree to disagree.

Peace out.

kbrn2002, ADN, RN · May 2

The not going to management with every little thing like a 5 year old running to mommy and saying "mommy, look what she did!" I can totally agree with. That's just immature behavior from somebody who should be expected to behave like a professional adult. The same with the gossip girls groups that act like a bunch of petty high schoolers. Unfortunately that's also human nature, I've dealt with one or both of those types everywhere I've worked, not just in the nursing profession.

As for expecting all nurses to encourage and mentor new nurses, that is a crock of the brown stuff. Mainly because most workplaces we are already overworked, understaffed and underpaid. Partly just because not every nurse has the personality to be an effective mentor. We are too busy running our tails off to get our work done, who has time to mentor that new nurse? If employers expect new hires to be properly trained and yes, mentored in their role they need to first assign that new nurse to work with one experienced nurse that is a great preceptor for long enough that the new nurse is reasonably proficient and ready to practice independently and they need to pay that preceptor extra for being willing to take on that role.

HiddenAngels · May 5

Steph1985 said:

Compassion fatigue? That's a no from the panel. If someone is experiencing compassion fatigue, they may need a long vacation—or to seriously reconsider whether nursing is the right career for them. This profession demands resilience, empathy, and consistent emotional presence.

Let's be clear: not all poor behavior can be blamed on compassion fatigue. Some people are simply making choices—to gossip, backstab, lie, stir drama, or create a toxic environment. That's not burnout; that's a lack of maturity and professionalism. We're talking about grown adults acting like unsupervised toddlers. Let's stop labeling bad behavior as something clinical. It's not always a condition—it's often a choice.

This was a great post. I feel that you wanted some answers. 'Heron' answered your question honestly. There are people who suffer from compassion fatigue, maybe where you work you don't see it, but some of us do see it, hence the reason we came in to support your post and give you an 'honest' answer to your question.

You are absolutely correct, people (should) come into the nursing profession with preexisting compassion, empathy, and a willingness to care for others, but some don't. They come for the paycheck, the job security, and the benefits. However, and often both things can be true. It's when a lack of nurturing and caring for outside strangers (patients and coworkers) exist is where nursing sees a problem. When I first started, I was belittled by a seasoned nurse over a gtt. I started shaking and crying. NO harm done to the patient, but the nurse and her girls thought it was great to catch me in a mistake and yell at me, they kept "can you believe, can you believe, can you believing anyone who would listen". What I've learned is that mistakes are teaching moments. That was her moment to shine to uplift and be a positive role model. Instead, she chose to belittle, gossip, and separate.

And let's be honest, sometimes people just don't care. Yes, even people in scrubs. Yes, even people who've been there for years. Staffing is short and we need them. You'll know them when you see them, precepting but watching movies on their phones. Going to the managers about trivial mistakes that THEY should be coaching the new nurses on but just to make themselves look good, they try to make others look bad. There are a couple of active posts now about new nurses that want to quit because they don't feel like they're learning, or they're too scared, or they're being bullied.

Conversely, nurses are some of the BEST people I know!. I've seen nurses take the extra time do hard tasks or help someone while they themselves were extreeeeemely busy but they'll stop what they're doing to help. I've seen 'secret shopper' nurses go and clean up my patient while I was busy and never even told me about it (I love yall!! wink). Reality may not be what we want it to be with nursing, but we should all strive to be better to someone else. That should be our commitment, because that's our job.

Also BTW Happy Nurses WEEK!

JKL33 · May 6

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As nurses, we enter this profession with a deep sense of empathy, compassion, and a commitment to caring for others.

Hopefully many of us have some degree of regard for the things you mention. Surely you know not all nurses possess a deep sense of empathy, compassion and commitment to caring.

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We are trained to provide the highest level of care for our patients

No, as a matter of fact we are not. Our education/training generally affords us the ability to enter the workforce as a novice/beginner level of functioning.

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Yet, it's disheartening to witness the way some of us treat one another.

Yes.

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some choose to belittle, gossip, and even sabotage the growth of new nurses. How do we expect a new graduate to succeed if we constantly tear them down, rather than uplift them? Our role as mentors should be to guide, not to criticize. If we don't support them, how can we expect them to become the best nurses they can be?

Some do choose to behave that way. It's unfortunate. Also, some do not behave that way.

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Furthermore, just because you have the ear of leadership does not give you the right to spread falsehoods or manipulate the narrative about a colleague. Seniority should never be used as an excuse to disrespect others, to lie about their actions, or to create an environment where complaints are punished with retaliation. When a new nurse feels intimidated or targeted, their potential for growth diminishes, and the entire team suffers.

Who is the "you" here? Nurses with seniority? Yes, it would be nice if those who have the ear of leadership used that connection responsibly, but sometimes people don't. Also, having some degree of seniority doesn't guarantee that one will have someone's ear. Also, you are again talking about a subset of people--those who both have the ear and use it to tear people down. And for the record let's make sure to acknowledge that having some kind of ear with management does not require seniority and that some people without seniority have been known to also use their position in ways that are unfair or are meant to try to protect the self by trying to bring someone else down.

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Being in the field for years doesn't make anyone invincible. No matter how long you've worked, we're all replaceable.

True.

Keep in mind, a lot of times the reason that people act in the ways you are writing against is because they actually don't feel that good. Sometimes they're doing those things in order to bolster their own self esteem and have the opportunity to feel "better than" someone else for a short time. Some people actually try to do good, and some try to make themselves look good by trying to make someone else look worse than themselves. It doesn't work, but people try it all the time. And by the way this is all around us, not just in nursing.

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The culture of support is greatly lacking , and we are so divided. Nursing is about caring for each other, too. We must choose kindness, be willing to teach, and make room for everyone to succeed.

Yes, there is no true culture of support. To actually be successful on a large scale that would need to start at the top. There are infinitely more facets to this problem than what you are focused on here. You might as well ask why all of humanity just can't be kind to each other, and I don't mean that sarcastically.

Even just in nursing, this is a very large topic. Your discussion seems to use the theme that things should be better because we are nurses. Have you ever stopped to consider that some of this is actually *worse* because of various tenets and facets of nursing? For example, reading the Code of Ethics one would think that we literally can and must constantly strive to achieve utopia for all humanity, that it is our responsibility and duty to do so, as if we actually can do that. Then we get out of school and get done writing papers about the Code of Ethics, and the employer at our very first job figuratively spits right directly in our face and gives a whole new set of **literally impossible** feats that we must strive for and accomplish [some of which are at direct odds with the Code of Ethics, mind you], and they will be VERY PROMPT in proclaiming that when we cannot achieve all of their wishes, it is because of some defect in ourselves!

THAT, in my humble opinion, is the crappy, quicksand foundation of nursing. As far as achieving what we're supposedly meant to be achieving, we're sunk before we can even do anything. And I believe, specifically within nursing, that these severe and serious contradictions absolutely affect dynamics within the workforce. [In addition to the fact that we are all individuals experiencing various trials and hardships in life].

If you have a situation or set of experiences that you would like to discuss specifically, that would probably be better than a general indictment of nurses with seniority.