WHY are nurses so catty??

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I swear sometimes i don't know WHY i'm in this profession. My mom works at a job as a RN and was limping one day. Her knee bothers her from time to time, etc...she's overweight (and working on it) but it gives her trouble at times. Instead of someone ASKING her what was wrong, one of the nurses ran to the manager and told her that my mom couldn't "keep up" and didn't seem to be quick enough for the job cuz she seemed disabled. This is a NEW job for my mom, so she's still on orientation technically. The manager called her in and made her take off today to go to Occ health and have it tested so she could be cleared to work. WTF?? She told her "we'll figure out what to do pending what the doc says." so she didn't work today and lost that time worked. Of course she went to occ health, the Doc tested her etc...and cleared her no problem. She told him she was excercising, walking and taking meds for it. Forgot to wrap it that day, but was not having any trouble SINCE that day. I have 2 problems with this. 1 is that NOBODY asked her what was up with her knee that day. NOBODY. 2 is that the manager just jumped on it because of what this other nurse SAID. WHY do nurses feel like they have to police each other's performance? UGH i'm just disgusted.

As a woman, I will confidently opine that men tend to be better 'team players' than women. Men are less likely to gossip, sabotage, backstab, and play emotional mind games with their coworkers. Men can actually place their personal feelings aside for the sake of getting the job done.

Many women, on the other hand, are emotional, gossipy, nosey, and feel jealously threatened by the most idiotic things. Nursing is a female-dominated profession, so there's going to be an abundant amount of cattiness in nursing.

Absolutely agree......I've worked in several different hospitals and other situations as a RN and it is true.......

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As a woman, I will confidently opine that men tend to be better 'team players' than women. Men are less likely to gossip, sabotage, backstab, and play emotional mind games with their coworkers. Men can actually place their personal feelings aside for the sake of getting the job done.

Many women, on the other hand, are emotional, gossipy, nosey, and feel jealously threatened by the most idiotic things. Nursing is a female-dominated profession, so there's going to be an abundant amount of cattiness in nursing.

Sad, but true.

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Specializes in Psych.
Sad, but true.

Ditto. Let's all get on the bandwagon and try to make '06 the year of living for others. Maybe w/a concerted effort we can CHANGE THE WORLD (or at least our little corner of the NURSING world) and lead by example. Showing others that OUR PATIENTS come first and hoping they will follow our lead. That's right, just let those little jealousies and frustrations fall by the wayside and be tolerant and encouraging towards our colleagues. Male nurses, we are counting on YOU to lead the way. SIGH! Am I a dreamer, or what?:rotfl:

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Now I have worked with men that were just as , lets say disruptive. Nursing can bring the best and worst out in a person. No matter the sex of a person, catty will always be in nursing, forever. Maybe if you go way, way back, like the nurse that practically raised me as she worked 35 years in L+D, nope, she never knew catty. But then again, thats when people went into nursing for all the right reasons.

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Specializes in home & public health, med-surg, hospice.
Male nurses, we are counting on YOU to lead the way. SIGH!

Are you serious?

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Catty is probably an understatement I am sure we can find other words to describe such behaviour. Men like women in nursing can be very difficult personality types. I find that some co-workers aspire to be looked at as heroes and try to look good by attempting at all cost to make others look bad. The nurse who came in to work limping shows me that she is a determined and strong person--- who puts her needs aside for those of her patients--- yeah i have a limp but so what i have pts to care for who have probably lost the privilege to stand, walk, talk, breathe independantly etc :nurse:

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As a woman, I will confidently opine that men tend to be better 'team players' than women. Men are less likely to gossip, sabotage, backstab, and play emotional mind games with their coworkers. Men can actually place their personal feelings aside for the sake of getting the job done.

Many women, on the other hand, are emotional, gossipy, nosey, and feel jealously threatened by the most idiotic things. Nursing is a female-dominated profession, so there's going to be an abundant amount of cattiness in nursing.

As a woman, I could not disagree more and think that's an outdated misogynistic attitude. I've worked in several different hospitals and worked in a female dominated workplace for almost 8 years before I became a nurse. I have worked with some amazing groups of women (and a few catty men!). The cattiness I've seen has generally come with short staffing, long hours, poor morale on the unit, etc. Gender has nothing to do with it and I'm not waiting for more men to come into nursing to improve the atmosphere, I'm being nice to my coworkers.

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Now I have worked with men that were just as , lets say disruptive. Nursing can bring the best and worst out in a person. No matter the sex of a person, catty will always be in nursing, forever. Maybe if you go way, way back, like the nurse that practically raised me as she worked 35 years in L+D, nope, she never knew catty. But then again, thats when people went into nursing for all the right reasons.

I honestly don't recall ever working with a male that behaved as what we are talking about. Oh, I'm sure they are out there, I just never worked with one. I LOVE working with men, it's fun. I am finding that I just don't want to work in hospitals anymore because of women.

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As a woman, I could not disagree more and think that's an outdated misogynistic attitude. I've worked in several different hospitals and worked in a female dominated workplace for almost 8 years before I became a nurse. I have worked with some amazing groups of women (and a few catty men!). The cattiness I've seen has generally come with short staffing, long hours, poor morale on the unit, etc. Gender has nothing to do with it and I'm not waiting for more men to come into nursing to improve the atmosphere, I'm being nice to my coworkers.

We disagree. It is not an outdated attitude, sadly it is the behaviors that are alive and well. Discussing it is what is outdated, or perhaps not PC. These are the same childish behaviors that children utilize.

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Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.
As a woman, I will confidently opine that men tend to be better 'team players' than women. Men are less likely to gossip, sabotage, backstab, and play emotional mind games with their coworkers. Men can actually place their personal feelings aside for the sake of getting the job done.

Many women, on the other hand, are emotional, gossipy, nosey, and feel jealously threatened by the most idiotic things. Nursing is a female-dominated profession, so there's going to be an abundant amount of cattiness in nursing.

MeeeeeOWCH!!

Personally, I detest the term 'catty'........it demeans and degrades an entire gender, and I know I'M not that way, nor are most of the women I know. There are a few in every workplace, and they can make the rest of us miserable if we let them; but to characterize fully 51% of the world's humans as such is unfair and untrue.

'Nuff said.:stone

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We disagree. It is not an outdated attitude, sadly it is the behaviors that are alive and well. Discussing it is what is outdated, or perhaps not PC. These are the same childish behaviors that children utilize.

I don't think PC has anything to do with it because it is discussed over and over again by nurses. The PC police don't seem to say much about it.

I didn't say the behaviors weren't there in some people. I just think any attitude that says gender is the cause of bad behavior is outdated. I'm a woman and have no problem working with other women in general. Some I like, some I don't like so much, same as the men I work with. I'm not prone to cattyness as far as I can tell and I'm a woman. If someone is being rude to me, I confront it and move on. It's worked pretty well for me.

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I don't think PC has anything to do with it because it is discussed over and over again by nurses. The PC police don't seem to say much about it.

I didn't say the behaviors weren't there in some people. I just think any attitude that says gender is the cause of bad behavior is outdated. I'm a woman and have no problem working with other women in general. Some I like, some I don't like so much, same as the men I work with. I'm not prone to cattyness as far as I can tell and I'm a woman. If someone is being rude to me, I confront it and move on. It's worked pretty well for me.

I guess I will go on personal experience. I have seen a great many catty females (not just nurses but it does seem to be worse in a hospital setting) but I don't recall many catty males and no catty male nurses.

Might be interesting to do this as a poll and see what the results are. Let's face it, much of this is subjective and difficult to measure. But it's not difficult to measure when some poor girl is the target of the behaviors. It's nothing less than cruel.

You and I (I think) have something in common. We aren't afraid to speak up and talk to a coworker (unless she is stinky LOL different thread). We don't NEED to run to the floor mommy. We have the social skills to talk it out and express a concern over a specific issue with the coworker. I don't think your average new grad is like that. You get some poor 20 y/o who is the target of these behaviors and ask her. Were they women or men?

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