Why are Newbies Such Whiners?

[Ruby Vee]

catchy title, eh? right up there with "why are nurses such backstabbers" (assuming that all nurses are backstabbers) and "nurses eat their young" and "why are nurses so mean?" i don't know about the rest of us "seasoned nurses", but i'm getting rather tired of all the threads busting on us for being "mean" to new nurses, students, etc. it seems to be an underlying assumption on most of the threads of the ilk that nurses are mean, evil backstabbers who live to humiliate someone with less experience.

i've had the opportunity lately to observe some newbies and their preceptors from the patient's perspective. granted, i've been a nurse for 29 years and have been both an orientee and a preceptor -- most recently an orientee. so i do have some experience from pretty much all sides now.

i was a patient, flat in bed after my spinal surgery. the orientee and preceptor introduced themselves, outlined the plan for the day, and then the preceptor left for a short while to sort out another patient who was screaming the screams of the totally demented, leaving the orientee to do my assessment and am care. the orientee was supposed to be almost ready to be on her own -- and she scared me to death! wanted to give my antihypertensives when my bp was 82/50, wanted to give my hctz when i was dehydrated from vomiting, npo, and my iv rate was only 50cc/hour and a few other things indicating (to me, anyway) poor judgment. when i refused to take the meds and outlined my rationale, she ordered me to take them anyway so she wouldn't get into trouble. i asked her how long she'd been in this job, and was it her first nursing job, or where had she worked before. the floodgates opened, and she started complaining about what a terrible place it was to work, the lousy pay, the horrible hours and how all the experienced staff were mean to her. (the preceptor came back into the room in time to hear that.) totally unprofessional! the preceptor didn't say anything in front of me, and calmly took her off to "plan the rest of our day."

later that day, i overheard the orientee telling someone (i'm assuming on her cellphone) how totally mean her preceptor was, and how the preceptor was "out to get her." she said "all i was doing was bonding with my patient who is a nurse, too, and the ***** (preceptor) just totally humiliated me. she told me i was unprofessional! i thought you were supposed to be nice to your patients."

nurse eating her young? or totally out of line and unprofessional newbie whining about being justifiably corrected?

another time, i heard a preceptor tell her orientee not to give my antihypertensives if my bp was less than 100/systolic. (it was.) newbie comes in to give my antihypertensives anyway. (different newbie.) i refuse. newbie goes to get preceptor. preceptor and i discuss my bp and agree not to give antihypertensives. later, i hear preceptor calmly explaining to newbie that giving an antihypertensive to a hypotensive patient can cause problems. (they're out in the hall, evidently close to my room, and i didn't hear anyone else around, so i'm assuming there was at least an illusion of privacy for this discussion.) newbie got defensive and started lying. preceptor remained calm and reiterated her position. newbie continued to be defensive, escalating the volume. later, i hear the two newbies commisserating about how mean their respective preceptors are.

i have to admit that when i hear a new nurse complaining about how "nurses eat their young", especially after those recent experiences, i always wonder what a preceptor could possibly do to try to correct some of these blatent mistakes without being accused of being "mean." and i wonder if that new nurse was as ridiculously in the wrong as those two were, and if she was, did she have any clue that her problems weren't all someone else's fault!

precepting is a tough enough job without being accused of being evil everytime you try to help someone to do better! being a new person is difficult, too -- but please try to look at what you contribute to the problem rather than just blaming the seasoned nurses you work with!

[newbiern2006]

for those nurses on orientation who are sure they don't have time to go and look up an unfamiliar drug -- do you think that time magically stretches once you're off orientation? you are always going to encounter drugs that are unfamiliar.

i wasn't talking about an unfamiliar drug - my drug handbook is with me at all times, as is my rn notes. i'm talking about something i don't even know how to begin figuring out for myself - like entering information from a blood transfusion in the computer. i literally begged for help with that one, and every single nurse heaved a sigh and walked away from me - one had the nerve to tell me i should have learned it in orientation. well, i didn't, even though i asked repeatedly for instruction sheets for the various computer tasks involved in our job. i was told, "oh, don't worry about that right now, you'll learn it when you're on the floor." oh, really? and just exactly how am i going to do that with the nasty attitudes i've been running into?

i am not a whiner - i graduated magna cum laude in spite of some very difficult circumstances, and i never once complained about the workload in school when all my classmates whined until i was ready to scream. but there are some things i just can't do alone, and learning my way around the computer is one of them. i wasn't taught how to enter a stat chest x-ray, for example - do you really think my patient had time for me to "go look it up" (there wasn't anywhere to look it up)?!!!!! i was left looking incompetent, when the orientation is what was incompetent.

[DarciaMoonz, LPN]

I am a nursing student and I agree with there being bad apples on both sides. I just deal with it and learn how NOT to treat people, and also learn what I need to be a good nurse and care for my patients. I have had the unfortunate experience of dealing with a control freak, and just because you've been in the field for a long time doesn't make you immune to mistakes. Example: One of my fellow students took the B/P of a certain patient and came up with something like 110/60, the instructor told her she was wrong and doesn't know how to take B/Ps and yelled at her and embarrassed her in front of the staff at the hospital, and the other students. So two other staff members took the B/P and came up with the numbers the student had, and the CI was NOT happy at all, because she has a "your a student and don't know anything" attitude, so your wrong even if your right. Now in the case with the young woman whom was to give antiHTN meds, she deserved whatever corrections to her behavior was warranted. I don't know how she got so far without someone realizing that she didn't know the parameters for giving antihypertensives. The majority of people that most students care for are on some form of these meds, and if she didn't know, the professional thing to do would have been to research the med. I would not be suprised if this student complained about every instructor and how everyone is out to get her. To me she is not ethical or safe for practice. Now if she is due to graduate soon, is she going to give someone a med just because she doesn't want to fill out the MAR stating why she couldn't give it? It has been my experience that the people whom I perceived to be just down right mean are the people I learned from the most. They try to teach you how to do things the right way. When I worked in the O.R. as a Surg. Tech., I would always get assigned to a certain room, and I really didn't care too much for the Circulating nurse. But one day she pullled me to the side and said, I asked them to put you in my room because your good, and I want you to stay that way. I don't want you to get into the habit of taking unsafe shortcuts and doing things that your not supposed to being doing. And that statement coming from one whom others feared, is the biggest compliment anyone could have given me. So to the complainers, stop complaining and try to look at it in a different light. The one you think is your worst enemy may have more respect for you than you think and is probably trying to keep you on the straight and narrow to make you your best. Many thanx to my "mean" instructors and preceptors, for not allowing me to make mistakes;)

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

it has been my experience that the people whom i perceived to be just down right mean are the people i learned from the most. they try to teach you how to do things the right way. when i worked in the o.r. as a surg. tech., i would always get assigned to a certain room, and i really didn't care too much for the circulating nurse. but one day she pullled me to the side and said, i asked them to put you in my room because your good, and i want you to stay that way. i don't want you to get into the habit of taking unsafe shortcuts and doing things that your not supposed to being doing. and that statement coming from one whom others feared, is the biggest compliment anyone could have given me. so to the complainers, stop complaining and try to look at it in a different light. the one you think is your worst enemy may have more respect for you than you think and is probably trying to keep you on the straight and narrow to make you your best. many thanx to my "mean" instructors and preceptors, for not allowing me to make mistakes;)

thank you! this is pretty much what i was trying to get across when i started the thread!

complainers: stop complaining and try to look at it in a different light. the preceptor you percieve as being "mean" to you may be just trying to get you to do your best.

the people you see as mean may be the ones who are most dedicated to teaching you the right way to do things, without any unsafe shortcuts.

and sometimes the newbies who whine the most that people are being mean to them are the newbies who require the most correction, and won't see any correction as anything other than being mean to them!

[lupin]

You know, I sometimes forget to look at things in a different light. I do occasionally dwell on the negative. I am not a "newbie", I've been an RN a year and a half and an LPN a year before that, but I do find myself occasionally looking at things in a bad light. Especially lately (post holiday blahs maybe?).

My preceptor for my current job was excellent. She's now my coworker and we get along great. In fact after she precepted me, I went to nights for a while until a spot on dayshift opened up. When it did, she and several other nurses on our rotation specifically asked for me. I know I made mistakes in my orientation, I had not worked in a hospital before, but only in NH or AL. But apparently I either handled it well or didn't make a big enough mistake that it didn't change people's opinion of me.

I have seen this past May's grads come in and already they are complaining about how nursing is awful, the patients stink and they don't get paid nearly enough. All of those are somewhat true but I still don't know of any other job I would rather be doing. I worked retail for 3yrs before becoming a nurse and anytime I think about changing careers, I just imagine the Christmas season at Walmart and I'm instantly grateful for my license all over again;) .

[newbiern2006]

I still don't know of any other job I would rather be doing. I worked retail for 3yrs before becoming a nurse and anytime I think about changing careers, I just imagine the Christmas season at Walmart and I'm instantly grateful for my license all over again;) .

I worked crummy jobs a lot longer than three years, and I couldn't agree more, and except for God and my family, nothing is more important to me than nursing - all the more reason to protect my license with rabid fierceness. The money ain't bad, either:nurse:

[Roy Fokker, BSN, RN]

The nurses I've learned most from have been thoroughly professional. They don't make excuses for you when you screw up, but they do recognize that you will screw up, and they're there to catch you when you do. Then they explain how you screwed up, and how to avoid it, next time

Yes, like the absolute dumb*** mistake I did three nights ago. :uhoh21:

I helped ambulate a patient with an imobilizer on her left leg - assuming she was weight bearing as tolerated! I mean, she tolerated it well and all but that's really not the point...

At report, when I was going through my list of 8 patients, the nurse who was taking her for morning shift stopped me when I got to that point.

"You did what?"

"I helped her to the toilet"

"With an imobilizer on her leg and a potential fx ?"

"Oh dang!" :smackingf

"That's ok. We just won't be doing any more of that today".

Then she winked at me and said that she understands (I had 8 pts. that night ) but I ought to be more careful next time. I think it helped that she used to be my preceptor on day shift!

[jjjoy, LPN]

What a great preceptor, Fokker! Mistakes WILL happen. For those who don't take them seriously, they may need to be scolded to wake up and smell the coffee but for those who tend to the perfectionist end of the spectrum, they may need the reassurance that they needn't beat themselves up for honest mistakes.

Being of the latter sort, I'd do much better with a preceptor like yours than one that would harshly tell me "I can't BELIEVE you did that! That was CARELESS and UNSAFE. You're just LUCKY that you didn't hurt the patient. Do I have watch EVERYTHING that you do?" - even if I had been the one who noticed my mistake and reported my assessment of the current situation.

Like anything, the worst offenders (whiners, unsupportive colleagues) probably aren't on these boards, and the rest of us tend to get a little defensive because, being imperfect and often under stress, we may at times come across as whining or as unsupportive when most of the time we're not, and we don't want to be lumped with the true bad apples.

[dawn002004]

well i am a newbie, not whining but scared $&*^less at times. My preceptor was very nice to me and encouraging, i also bought her a gift for putting her time and effort also her liscence on the line for me at the end of orientation.

[linzz]

I too had two preceptors, and my second preceptor really went out of her way to teach me, so I bought her a gift and during my time with her I drove her to work when she needed a ride. I think sometimes that a student being interested in learning and going out your way to be helpful can help the learning experience assuming the environment is not hostile.

[Schoolnursetrish39]

Amen to that Medic Nurse.. when I was in nursing school. I had clinical instructors that watched us like hawks and I even had one who thought I wasn't cut out to be a nurse and had me do extra wound care when some of my classmates thougfht it was "gross" and also to come in and do a day in the ER with her personally starting IVS. I was sure she hated me.

You know what I thank God she was hard on me and taught me and "picked " on me because when I was a "newbie" I knew a few things.. as a nurse I learn something new every day... and if you don't you are slacking..

[nurseinlimbo]

What I think is interesting is that one nurse can think that you are doing really well, catch on quickly, are good with your patients and conscientious with your charting, meds etc. and the next one can berate you to no end. I think it has more to do with their perception of themselves, and their comfort level with what they know and can do. As in anything in life, humility goes a long way, and even the nurses with 30 years experience don't know everything, and haven't seen everything. What matters is how you accept new members of the team, do you treat them like they are a hindrence that you will have to "carry", or do you foster their knowledge and growth?

I met one nurse a year or so ago who at first seemed really prickly, negative etc. but when I got to know her, I realized she was only like that because she got tired of listening to her coworkers who really didn't know as much as they thought they did. She was actually patient and kind when it came to teaching me or watching me do a procedure, and she trusted me with the things she knew I could do already, not watching me like a hawk so that she could jump on me if I made a mistake. In turn, I was comfortable going to her when I had a question, and didn't feel like I was under the microscope all the time.

On that same unit, there were a few who never made eye contact or said hello, for six months. So cut us newbies some slack, sometimes we don't know what we are gonna get from the experienced RNs, and it can feel like walking on egg shells.

[scrubsnhugsRN]

I dont whine.......I vent!:roll