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.

Specializes in Rodeo Nursing (Neuro).

OOh i'm venting. Probably sounding catty too. Is that why? B/c it's so stressful mixed with all these different personalities? It seems lots of superior complexes too. Or they are not confident and put others down people too. Dismays me. You need tough skin. Guess goes with life.

I don't have all the answers, but I kinda suspect getting on allnurses and letting off steam might be part of the solution. Better than taking it out on your co-workers, anyway. And you're right--you do need tough skin.

I love this stupid job, but there are days when it really, really, really sucks a lot.

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Yeh, but you have to admit, most of the time it seems more like argueing than discussing? LOL !!!

Jen

It's not argueing or discussing, it's being "catty". (What is catty anyway, would someone please define.)

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I agree it's wrong to blame "cattiness" on women.

however...

I looked up "horizontal violence" in Google, and most of the very well written articles concerning the topic addressed it from within the female workplace.

Coincidence?

Definition:

cattiness: bitchiness, spite, spitefulness, nastiness

malevolence by virtue of being malicious or spiteful or nasty

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Specializes in Pediatric neurosurgery/general pediatric.
WOW! See THAT is exactly what I wasn't prepared with in nursing school! I was SHOCKED at the mix of personalities, gossip and back stabbing that goes on. .......SNIP....... You need tough skin. Guess goes with life.

I could have wrote that myself, I hope it made you feel better just getting it out. I know it helped me just reading that others go through it too, and the bottom line is that you do need tough skin to handle nursing. Nature of the job. I would assume all careers are like this, but I wouldn't know. Bottom line is that I wouldn't choose any other career.

As far as horizontal violence, interesting I will have to read more. First I have to go through three days straight of nursing. Like a tech always says to me when I walk onto the unit. Smile, you're at work! :bugeyes:

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Specializes in ER/Trauma.
Nurse are catty because most are female, and females are catty, and that's that? I don't think so.
Not to mention circular reasoning and hence a fallcy....
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I had a similar problem but I was pregnant. I was reorientating on the ward I worked on. The nurse that reoreintated me was very frank about wanting my job. One night shift we worked, I would of been fine but we worked for a solid 5 or 6 hours without a break and she wouldnt let me take a break, and I made errors with IV's which were then passed onto my supervisor. She said I was not able to cope. Having a break , is something we all need and no empathy for me who was pregnant. I just cant believe how mean people are. The very next day, I talked to one of the patients and he was complaining about how a few nurses and how they were very mean to him. He continued to speak about this same nurse and this other one and said he had complained to a higher authority. I just wish I had done something about about my situation as he did.

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thank God, i havent seen this on my floor, i have only been there since June, its my first RN position since i graduated in May...i work on a very busy and understaffed telemetry/med. surg step down unit and work third shift.....they are just so relieved to have another body to help them try to keep their collective heads above water!

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:jester: thank God, i havent seen this on my floor, i have only been there since June, its my first RN position since i graduated in May...i work on a very busy and understaffed telemetry/med. surg step down unit and work third shift.....they are just so relieved to have another body to help them try to keep their collective heads above water!
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hi,

i have my own slant on this common problem...i've been in the profession for many years and have come to view the "nursing unit" as a "family" with the manager the "parent" of the family. Some "members" of the family, ie. rns, lpn, cnas etc. feel as if they have to compete with each other and have various behaviors that some of us may have noticed in our siblings, if you have siblings. Some have never grown up and continue to exhibit "childlike" behaviors that appeared in childhood, but no longer belong in the workplace when you are an adult.

For instance...making someone look silly at their expense; trying to outsmart someone; tattling; not taking responsibility for what you do; blaming others; gossiping; and any other behaviors which are counter-productive.

The manager, as the "parent" should control these behaviors and avoid giving positive reinforcement to any of them, as any good parent would...for what it's worth, that's how i have come to view it...:idea:

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I beg to differ and believe that posting is simply sexist. There is something about the nursing field that makes women more like hens thany any other field..yes, there is estrogen floating around, but i have worked in other fields with many women and have never seen anyone act like the way they do in nursing. this eating their young thing and behaving in petty ways is unprofessional and a shame. it's a culture that needs to be changed.

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I would suggest that generalizing about nurses and nursing with regard to cattiness or any other personality deficit is about as accurate as generalizing about anything else about people: it reflects our own critical narrow mindedness, no offense to the poster in question.

BUT I also think that to suggest that the statement is sexist is to forget that there are a great many very good male nurses, as well as a great many nurses who focus on good patient care and supporting and helping each other.

I'm one of those, and I suspect you are too.

And I'll also submit that we don't last in many settings because taking the time to be kind to each other and to give the good care that drew us to nursing in the first place is seen as a "time management problem" by managers and others whose focus is the bottom line.

It's why I have not been able to stomach most of the places I've worked because I refuse to be dragged into anything that demeans patients or other nurses.

And it's why I'm in grad school. I have the crazy idea that as a nurse practitioner I'll be in a better position to positively influence the little world in which I practice.

I honestly think if enough of us start giving the warm and supportive care to our patients (even the demanding ones with demanding families) and be mutually supportive and kind to our coworkers (even the ones we don't like), then a whole bunch of foci of decency will develop, and expand in size and number, and eventually maybe hearing stories about poor care and cattiness will be a thing of the past.

Wouldn't that be cool?

Thanks for reviving a post with real potential to help us all change our attitudes....

:yeah:

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Specializes in Rodeo Nursing (Neuro).
I would suggest that generalizing about nurses and nursing with regard to cattiness or any other personality deficit is about as accurate as generalizing about anything else about people: it reflects our own critical narrow mindedness, no offense to the poster in question.

BUT I also think that to suggest that the statement is sexist is to forget that there are a great many very good male nurses, as well as a great many nurses who focus on good patient care and supporting and helping each other.

I'm one of those, and I suspect you are too.

And I'll also submit that we don't last in many settings because taking the time to be kind to each other and to give the good care that drew us to nursing in the first place is seen as a "time management problem" by managers and others whose focus is the bottom line.

It's why I have not been able to stomach most of the places I've worked because I refuse to be dragged into anything that demeans patients or other nurses.

And it's why I'm in grad school. I have the crazy idea that as a nurse practitioner I'll be in a better position to positively influence the little world in which I practice.

I honestly think if enough of us start giving the warm and supportive care to our patients (even the demanding ones with demanding families) and be mutually supportive and kind to our coworkers (even the ones we don't like), then a whole bunch of foci of decency will develop, and expand in size and number, and eventually maybe hearing stories about poor care and cattiness will be a thing of the past.

Wouldn't that be cool?

Thanks for reviving a post with real potential to help us all change our attitudes....

:yeah:

I have to admit, I groaned a little when I saw this thread had popped up, again, but I've just gone back and re-read every post, and I also have to admit, I'm surprised how my perspective has changed with a few years under my belt. I still deny the suggestion that nurses are catty because they're women, and I'm still not convinced that nurses in general are catty. Oh, and yes, I still find the term offensive to Feline-Americans.

But I also have to admit I've seen my peers and myself sometimes struggling with more stress than they can well manage. I'm still proud of my unit, where taking it out on each other is not the norm. But that long, long post on worker abuse and horizontal violence is well worth wading through. Maybe I'm lucky, or maybe I'm blind, to think the problem isn't as pervasive as it can seem on these boards, where, as has often been noted, people are more likely to post when something is wrong than when everything is right, but you hear a complaint often enough and it becomes hard not to think there's something to it. And, honestly, even if I could be convinced that everybody who gets on here to complain is just a big old crybaby, it's still disturbing that so many people feel victimized. I suspect there's some truth to the self-fulfilling prophecy hypothesis. GN discovers orientation is really hard, has been taught to expect "nurses eat their young," and concludes orientation is hard because nurses eat their young. You've got the normal, human tendency to want to blame your troubles on someone else, and add to that pre-conditioning to blame someone else, and it tends to get a little hard to take responsibility for yourself and your own choices (We all chose to be nurses. Many of us knew in advance that it would be hard, and those who didn't, should have.) I am not trying to say there aren't any nurses who eat their young, or that GNs aren't willing to take responsibility for themselves. Hmmm. I think what I am trying to say is that maybe the worst thing about these and other negative generalizations is that when we assume this is how it's always been, we're pretty much assuring that this is how it will always be. I think a big part of changing the things that don't work has to be looking objectively at the things that do work. The assumption that nurses are catty overlooks all the times they aren't. And as for nurses being mostly women, I think that's at least as much a strength as a weakness. I suppose people are getting tired, by now, of hearing about when I was a carpenter, but when I was a carpenter, you never got a hug, now matter how bad your day was.

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