Why do nurses have to be so mean to nursing students?

Spikey9001, BSN, RN · Oct 14, 2011

Cause they're women and run of their emotions... duhhhh

but seriously, just seems to be an ego/insecurity thing mixed with a lack of sound infrastructure when it comes to educating future nurses.

Reader007 · Oct 14, 2011

Try a search...it's mostly because they're hungry due to working through lunch.

canigraduate · Oct 14, 2011

And they have to pee because they haven't been able to stop long enough for a break.

IDK, some people are just nasty and mean. Don't act like it bothers you or they'll keep it up and enjoy it even more.

kds74 · Oct 14, 2011

Patty-

I have been wondering the same thing myself. Yesterday I tried to ask for help with one of my critical patients and I was ignored. It doesn't feel good knowing you are so unwelcome in a place. I know nurses are busy, I know they don't eat, or take bathroom breaks, but we're human too and they have all been students at one time or another. I know there are a hundred reasons why they are short with us. Overwhelmed, unhappy with the system...

I just hope the veterans know, that we know how hard they work, and we aren't trying to get in the way or slow them down. It just seems to be the way it is.

I haven't come home yet, from one clinical and felt like I did anything right, or was helpful in anyway. It's a terrible feeling when you've spent this amount of time and money pursuing a career, that can be so unfriendly.

I don't know. I hope it gets better.

ashulee89 · Oct 14, 2011

I can understand what you mean about the attitude thing. I started my clinicals last week and our nurses aren't exactly nice. I spoke with a nurse a while back and she told me "Honey, we're the type that eat our young". I really took that to heart, i also read about the problems other nursing students were having on this forum. So when I got to clinical and started working I wasn't bothered by the remarks I got. They're busy and stressed. I asked my particular nurse if I could observe her giving a PEG feeding. She said, "Whatever you want lady" in a really annoyed tone. There was NO need for that, a simple yes or no would suffice. But you know what? Sometimes people are that way. I smiled and thanked her. If theres anything I recommend you take from your experience is to make sure you don't get to that point. At the end of the day I swore to myself I would never treat someone that way. Theres absolutely nothing you can say or do thats going to change them except kill them with kindness and move on to your next clinical. I really wish you the best of luck, just don't take what people tell you to heart. You're going through some difficult times with school, but keep your eye on the prize. :) Hope that helped!

ntropi · Oct 14, 2011

Unfortunately there seems to be a philosophy of "I had to go through this when I started so do you." I'm actually a HS science teacher and went through a similar hazing when I started teaching. In some ways I think the older teachers who were protected by their union felt threatened by me and wanted to get rid of me before I had a clue how the union worked or even had a chance to prove to them that their same job can be done by someone who does not need to whine to get it done. While I think hazing is one of the most stupid things people can do, for whatever reason they did not get it out of their system in college so they perpetuate it in the work place. Hang tough and look at it as one of their weaknesses. When you get hired someplace you will be there to help your patients and while a non-confrontational workplace is ideal, you may have to focus on helping the people you are there to help and let the others waste their energy in non-productive ways. I chose to focus on the kids and have never regretted that I was not invited to after work socials where all they would be doing anyway is talking dirt on kids and fellow colleagues. I am too busy to waste my energy on unhelpful adults. Best wishes for a successful transition into the professional nursing world.

yajaira21 · Oct 15, 2011

When I was a student I use to wonder the same exact thing Now I KNOW WHY They are anoying ,get in the way , slow things down and mess things up!!

a few examples :

Im a CNA doing my rounds and a student is in one of my rooms taking vitals I saw her knock the mans urinal down and do yo u know what she does she walks up to me and says" oh um theres a spill in there " and I said so why didn't you clean it up? "um I'm an LVN student " and she just walked off with the vital machine

I told her instructor.

We have a rule in this facility DONT LEAVE DIAPERS IN THE ROOMS

In 3 rooms I found 3 diapers and guess who almost got written up for that? Yup me. again I told there instructor

Then the students were learning how to put in a colostomy bag ( or something like that) Well they forgot to attach a bag to it and you guessed it there was poop EVERYWHERE! And when I looked for the instructor they all went home.

I was transferring a patient ( who is usually a 1 person transfer)and this day I was having real trouble he was about to fall I said "HELP!! HELP!!" I was screaming it and looking toward the door for someone I saw the student walk by and look in and didn't do anything instead one of the LVN's came in and helped.( I think she might have told her but still she could've helped)

One of my patients is a fall risk and he has a motion alarm on .......He gets up the alarm goes off we all go looking to see where the sound is coming from I see the man walking by him self and a student was RIGHT THERE 4 FT AWAY ! and she didn't do anything I got there and sat him down in the chair and shut the alarm off I asked her why didn't you do anything she said" I didn't know his name I couldn't get his attention " And I'm thinking to myself so because you don't know someones name your going to let him fall and potentially break a hip all she had to do was stand next to him and say excuse me sir .

Im sorry for my rant........ but students really stress me out!!!

Our charge nurse cant stand them and neither can I they give me more work to do and are getting me blamed for things I didn't do.

I can't wait until they leave!!

KimberlyRN89, BSN, RN · Oct 15, 2011

When I was a student I use to wonder the same exact thing Now I KNOW WHY They are anoying ,get in the way , slow things down and mess things up!!
a few examples :
Im a CNA doing my rounds and a student is in one of my rooms taking vitals I saw her knock the mans urinal down and do yo u know what she does she walks up to me and says" oh um theres a spill in there " and I said so why didn't you clean it up? "um I'm an LVN student " and she just walked off with the vital machine
I told her instructor.
We have a rule in this facility DONT LEAVE DIAPERS IN THE ROOMS
In 3 rooms I found 3 diapers and guess who almost got written up for that? Yup me. again I told there instructor
Then the students were learning how to put in a colostomy bag ( or something like that) Well they forgot to attach a bag to it and you guessed it there was poop EVERYWHERE! And when I looked for the instructor they all went home.
I was transferring a patient ( who is usually a 1 person transfer)and this day I was having real trouble he was about to fall I said "HELP!! HELP!!" I was screaming it and looking toward the door for someone I saw the student walk by and look in and didn't do anything instead one of the LVN's came in and helped.( I think she might have told her but still she could've helped)
One of my patients is a fall risk and he has a motion alarm on .......He gets up the alarm goes off we all go looking to see where the sound is coming from I see the man walking by him self and a student was RIGHT THERE 4 FT AWAY ! and she didn't do anything I got there and sat him down in the chair and shut the alarm off I asked her why didn't you do anything she said" I didn't know his name I couldn't get his attention " And I'm thinking to myself so because you don't know someones name your going to let him fall and potentially break a hip all she had to do was stand next to him and say excuse me sir .
Im sorry for my rant........ but students really stress me out!!!
Our charge nurse cant stand them and neither can I they give me more work to do and are getting me blamed for things I didn't do.
I can't wait until they leave!!

That school has no business sending students to your facility.. in all honesty you should be complaining to your DON, nursing home administrator, whatever powers that be...because that school's students are DANGEROUS! And their clinical instructor doesn't sound too on the ball, either. If we got complaints like that, I'm sure we would have been failed AND put out of the program.

AlexandrAnne · Oct 15, 2011

Honestly...

I was a CNA who really disliked nursing students. For almost the same reasons as yajaira21. There were a couple who were very helpful but for the most part, they thought that the CNAs were the facility's dumping ground for tasks they didn't want to perform. It was a little demeaning. I was a little territorial as well, which was exasperated by the students walking around as "competent" nurses (even though they created extreme safety concerns for all of the residents they touched) who owned the CNA's. Looking back now (as a student), maybe if I wasn't so mean to them, they would have responded better to my criticism (which was constructive in and of itself).

As a nursing student now, I am very very (probably hyper-) conscious of what the staff thinks of us. Two of my classmates have already gotten on some of their bad sides, and they assume that all of us have the same sort of mindset now.

We have a lot of restrictions on what we can do, as we are only in the early stages of the fundamentals course. We can't even get vital signs or transfer patients without the instructor present. I sit there so frustrated because of how useless I feel, and also by the fact that the staff thinks that we are trying to be useless on purpose. Some of my other classmates feel the same exact way. So we walk around and organize rooms, pass trays, tidy up linen closets, fill out paperwork, WHATEVER we are aloud to do - but they just couldn't care less. I try to answer call lights but they shoo me away. I wish that the staff would judge each student on an individual basis, and also understand that we *are* going to make mistakes and at least TRY to accommodate that. For the most part, although we might not understand EXACTLY how stressed/behind/overworked they are, we sympathize with them and want to help.

I don't subscribe to the "nurse's eat their young" mindset. It exists simply because people think it should, but it is no way to treat students JUST because of the fact that they are students. It benefits no one, and is the OPPOSITE of what nursing stands for. Self-concious students make more mistakes, staff spends unnecessary amounts of energy being catty to them. Exerting kindness is far less stressful and produces better results for everyone. This is not to say that some students don't deserve discipline, but it shouldn't be a one-fits-all guilty until proven innocent attitude towards students.

One nurse at the facility came up to me yesterday and asked if I wanted to observe a straight cath. After that she let me observe her check placements on some NG/G tubes, and we had a really good conversation before she got back to her med pass. She wasn't super duper out of the way nice to me, but she wasn't mean - and that meant the WORLD to me. I was on the verge of tears, just because someone treated me like a human being. I felt more confident the rest of the day, and was able to think more clearly. I even found some loopholes in my instructor's restrictions that aloud me to help the CNAs on the floor more. Just because of that one nurse.

I plan to be that nurse someday. And I hope that more nurses plan to avoid that stupid stereotype of "student eating" in the future.

northernguy · Oct 15, 2011

Theres no excuse for it, period. If you didnt have lunch because you were too busy, blame your employer, not some student. The Nurse is getting paid for their time, the student isnt. When I was in the military and deployed, missing meals and sleep was a routine part of life and the least of my concerns, does that mean I should go around treating everyone like **** the rest of my life to get revenge?

So youve done a task a hundred times the student has never done, does that make you superior and the student an idiot? Of course not. Some people do the same job for so long they forget what its like to be outside of their comfort zone.

fuzzywuzzy, CNA · Oct 15, 2011

Theres no excuse for it, period. If you didnt have lunch because you were too busy, blame your employer, not some student. The Nurse is getting paid for their time, the student isnt.

That's kind of a silly argument. The nurse is getting paid to take care of her patients, not to babysit students. The students only make it harder and the nurse gets paid the same whether they are there or not. Believe me I think that we should all get along and be nice to one another, but it goes both ways. For every story you hear about about a mean nurse, there is one about an inconsiderate student.