Why don't nurses bond?

Nurses Relations

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I have been marathon watching Chicago Fire. I have always heard that fire fighters bond and become like family and so far that is what the show portrays. I am just curious, why is it that we nurses (for the most part) do not stick together and bond like most fire fighters do? I have been a nurse for 18yrs and worked in 5 different settings. I have never seen this kind of bonding in my own personal experiences. Actually it has been quite the opposite. In school they pounded it into us to CYA. I thought at the time that we were CYA to avoid lawsuits or problems with management. I never dreamed we had to protect ourselves from each other as well. I hear a lot that it is because the profession is predominately female but I am not sure I believe that. I am sorry if this has been discussed to death just point me to the previous threads and I will be on my way. If anyone cares to share their experiences and opinions about this I would be interested to read them. Thanks

Specializes in LTC.
Actually, this thread reminds me of a very specific episode of ER. Doug and Carol had gotten back together but it was a secret. Mark and Doug go to California because Doug's father dies, Mark overhears a message that Doug is leaving for Carol on her answering machine. (Before the days of cell phones and text messages.) When Mark overhears, he asks who Doug is calling and Doug says "just someone I've been seeing for a few months" then Mark starts guessing who it could be and naming colleagues. Doug asks, "are you going to name everyone who works in the hospital?" Mark says "she doesn't work at the hospital?" in a way that suggests it would be shocking for a doctor at the hospital to date someone who doesn't work in the hospital.

TV isn't real life. I know of ONE nurse/doctor marriage that resulted from work and dozens of nurses who married people they met elsewhere.

Here is how many mornings after a graveyard shift in my former career I spent watching that show, I instantly remembered that episode, that conversation, and how sad I was for Mark much of that season. He had a crap season. He was painted like a jerk, but he really wasn't. He was just struggling. Yeah, lots and lots of TNT first thing in the morning after a long shift...

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Specializes in ICU/PACU.

I am sick of my coworkers. The last thing I want to do is bond, I want to get away. I think all the nurses in my unit hang out too much out of work. It's too cliquey, people gossip too much, and are too intertwined into others personal lives.

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Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.
TV isn't real life. I know of ONE nurse/doctor marriage that resulted from work and dozens of nurses who married people they met elsewhere.
All of the married nurses at my workplace met their spouses in circumstances that were not related to the job.

However, the unwashed public still believes what they see on fictional TV programs. I've had a couple of people assume I 'hooked up' with the doctors at work until I told them otherwise. Since they see doctors and nurses taking part in the hookup culture on TV shows, they actually assumed healthcare workplaces are similar to the high-drama episodes they've watched.

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All of the married nurses at my workplace met their spouses in circumstances that were not related to the job.

However, the unwashed public still believes what they see on fictional TV programs. I've had a couple of people assume I 'hooked up' with the doctors at work until I told them otherwise. Since they see doctors and nurses taking part in the hookup culture on TV shows, they actually assumed healthcare workplaces are similar to the high-drama episodes they've watched.

Plus the transporters are hotter. :bag:

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Plus the transporters are hotter. :bag:

Ohh yeahhh... That's what I'm talkin about!

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Ohh yeahhh... That's what I'm talkin about!

Cola, are we bonding? :)

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**snort**

Who says nurses don't bond? I think you've made a false assumption based on the hyped up drama you see on TV.

I've worked in a LOT of places, and probably 75% of them have several groups of nurses who have each other's backs at work, and most have a core group of long-timers who are godparents to each other's children and are involved in each other's lives.

Shoot, if you stick around here long enough, you will notice groups of nurses who have bonded virtually.

(You know who you are, my friends. Luv ya!!)

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Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.
Plus the transporters are hotter. :bag:

Ohh yeahhh... That's what I'm talkin about!

Cola, are we bonding? :)

Do you two need to get a room?

But seriously, bonding comes down to the culture of the workplace. I know that in our general OR, there isn't a lot of bonding because people don't work together all that frequently because there are just so many of them. However, on my little cardiac team, there are only 12 of us. We work with each other pretty much every day as a team, we have good teamwork, and yes, we do get together outside of work on occasion. I like to hear about my one coworker's baby who is meeting milestones, the other coworker's new puppy, the vacation that someone else is planning to take next week.

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Specializes in Community, OB, Nursery.

First, I never believe anything I see on TV.

Second, I have worked at my facility for 10 years and I totally feel like these folks are my second family. There is always the exception, but there are some folks there that we've been to hell and back in our personal lives and been there for each other. We've been through deaths, kids with serious psych issues, divorces, remarriages, financial difficulties, serious illnesses, and more....and I wouldn't trade my coworkers for the world!

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Specializes in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology.

I think it's because there are so many ways to approach certain situations and a lot of what some nurses do can be a little dogmatic. What one nurse does might be a complete abomination to another even if it's not necessarily dangerous for the patient and the outcomes for the different nursing interventions might be similar if not equal.

I had a bit of an epiphany the other day walking into clinical. I saw someone using a walker and there was also an arm injury so the walker didn't look like the best idea. I thought of how one nurse might think this is fine but if you ask 10 others there would be 10 other "better, safer, optimal" ways of dealing with this issue. One nurse might say, "This pt needs a wheelchair until that arm is healed because that is unsafe." Another might say, "If the pt is using a wheelchair then they might become more debilitated so the walker is fine." and another might say, "The pt should be using a 4-point cane to avoid using the injured arm at all." And then PT will come in and do something totally weird and slap some brace on the pt that no one has ever seen before that is completely bizarre and foreign to us all so we have no clue on what to do with it or how to educate the pt. So, I think sometimes, the difference of opinion and the perception of each of the nurses' motivations (i.e. "wheelchair nurse" is lazy and "walker nurse" doesn't care about the pts because they don't want to ask for a consult and "4-point cane nurse" is just bonkers...and PT get out of here with that crazy brace thing) is what causes the divide and prevents bonding. The knowledge foundation of nursing is so vast that it's hard to find a common ground.

Firefighters also have to be together for much longer stretches of time than nurses do so there's that. Also, I get there's fire science and all but there are very specific protocols to dealing with what they do. There's a fire, let's put water on it. There, done, let's go back to the station and go get groceries and do barbecue and chill and play XBox for the next 24 hours or whenever there's another call. If nurses got to play XBox together there would be arguments on EBP for Call of Duty or Dance Central.

There's also a whole firefighters are usually males and nurses are usually females thing but I'm not getting into that. I'll save it for another day.

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Specializes in Medical-Surgical, Telemetry/ICU Stepdown.

Nurses have some of the lowest career satisfaction scores in the world and highest burnout rates. I don't think there is any other professional, college-educated group out there that rates as poorly as nurses on the career satisfaction scale.

Sorry to be so cynical but we are near the rock bottom.

If you hate your job and you hate the industry then obviously bonding with the coworkers doesn't register very highly on your radar as your primary goal is to get the job done, clock out, get paid and leave.

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Specializes in Behavioral Health.
seriously if you could see the disciplinary reports I have had to sign you would not believe Chicago Fire any more than you believed ER or Grays Anatomy

Whatever, dude. My hospital is exactly like Grey's Anatomy. There's a hurricane or an earthquake or some kind of explosion every week, and every spring we're left with a cliffhanger that we don't find out the answer to until fall. Will the tough as nails director of nursing finally be forced to resign by the evil medical director/ex-lover? Will that unfair complaint teach the boundary-impaired young nurse not to get so involved with patients, or will she lose her license and be forced to leave the show, er, hospital?

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