Why are some nurses lazy and uncaring?

[Bobondialysis]

Firstly let me say I know there are great, caring, intelligent and special nurses out there. They are a god-send to people with chronic disease. But unfortunately I'm finding that less and less nurses embody the true calling that nursing should be. I was born with kidney failure. On dialysis from 12 - 14, transplant from 14 - 29, dialysis from 29 - 39 and back on dialysis from 39 to now age 42. Over many years I have noticed that nurses are becoming more lazy, more whingy and less caring. Not all but most. And just for the record I do my own needles, am very compliant and understand my dialysis machine better than most of the nurses.

One click on this website and I see everything I suspected about a lot of nurses. Most of you are too lazy and too unintelligent to leave a job a lot of you seem to hate.You should though because you attitudes are not one of caring anymore (if they ever were) you're just endangering patients. At the least you're hurting them. You think we don't catch on when you hate looking after those of us who are sick? Of course we do and it makes us feel even worse.

I was born with kidney failure and was the youngest in my town at the time to be on dialysis. That was age 12 in 1985. The nurses then took time to talk to you (sure I was a kid) they knew their jobs and hardly ever whinged about hours, shift times or spoke un-professionally about each other or the doctors. Fast forward to now. I've had two transplants (14-22 and 29 -39) and I'm back on dialysis. I do have some sympathy for nursing staff working with dialysis patients. I'm very compliant - put hardly any fluid on, do my own needles, take all my medication, am fairly strict with my diet and train (boxing, weights etc) once a week with other exercise on non-dialysis days.

A lot of the nurses in my centre don't understand the machines they're working with. We recently got new machines and the first thing I did was to read its manual. No such dedication from the staff. Most of them whinged very vocally (and un-professionally) about the new machines and that they had to learn something new. That's just one example. And boy are you guys un-professional. It doesn't take a genius to get you to open up and say offensive things about either fellow nurses or doctors. And after I've done a full days work and you're a couple of hours into your shift you whinge to ME about work. I still have 4 hours dialysis to go and I spend some of that time working. So can any of you let me know why nurses are so lazy and un-caring?

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

Welcome to Allnurses.com Inc. I assume you are in some country other than the States due to your writing style, syntax, and spelling of certain words (e.g. 'centre' instead of 'center').

I am so sorry about your perceived substandard experiences. On the other hand, a thread full of insults about nurses from a non-nurse on a nursing website is not going to initiate a constructive dialogue in any shape, form or manner.

Therefore, people will become hyper-defensive when you've referred to members of their profession as lazy, whiny, unintelligent, and uncaring. And when people become defensive, both sides get nowhere farther toward mutual understanding.

If you feel your dialysis nurses have been unintelligent or lacking knowledge, perhaps become a dialysis nurse and spread your competence. Good luck to you.