I am a nursing student and as such, when I do my clinical hours every week, I work under RNs. I'm fortunate that, this semester, 99% of the nurses on the ward I'm working in are extremely nice and willing to teach us nursing students about anything we have questions about. It's to the point that I don't feel awkward about asking even stupid questions because I know that they'll answer it without talking to me like I'm stupid.

However, last semester, I did run into some nurses who were not willing at all to help us. For example, my friend's patient had to have his dressing changed later and because she had never done it for real before, she was at the nurses station with a spare dressing change kit to practice. Now, the nurses station on this ward is huge with lots of desk space and chairs so she took her work to a relatively empty place at the station. Still, one of the nurses passed by and asked, in a really nasty tone, "Do you have to do that HERE?!"

And another example was with another friend...she had a question about one of her patient's treatments and she asked the nurse she was working under. The nurse looked at her as if she was an idiot and refused to help her. Then my friend asked another nurse and even THAT nurse refused to help her. It was only after she went to a third nurse that she got some help.

Even I have had my run-ins with nurses who are not willing to help. Like once, I was working with a difficult patient and he was becoming very agitated and frustrated and I had no idea what to do. I was afraid he would become aggressive with me if I didn't do something. I tried looking for the nurse I was working under and she was nowhere to be found. I even got someone at the nurse's station to use the intercom to try to call her but still nothing. It wasn't until my teacher had a free moment that I had help. I didn't see my nurse preceptor until a couple hours later.

While I know that there are a lot of very helpful nurses who are perfectly willing to help us students, these bad experiences stick out very prominently in my mind. I know it's not right. After all, us students are the future of nursing, right? And if we aren't taught properly, then what will happen to our future patients?

Still, as nursing students, I also feel that it's very difficult for us to speak out against nurses who are disrespectful to us, simply because they are nurses and we're students still learning the ropes. It got to the point where our teacher had to speak to the nursing manager on our behalf. Aftewards, it got a bit better, but I still don't think it should happen in the first place. And what if it continued to happen? Does anyone had any advice on what students can do if they have a run-in with unhelpful nurses?

Well, you've both had the taste of Nurses eat their young. Believe me, this isn't a joke either. I don't know why some people are like this, but they are.

RNdude said:

Here's one for you. I was doing one of 12 Saturday morning clinicals during my med/surg rotation at a smaller local hospital. We had been having a good experience so far. One of the nurses floated up from the ER (little 8 bed thing) to the unit we were on and called the desk from a pt's room asking for some assistance. One of the secretaries asked if I would help her. I went to the room and when I opened the door, this nurse said, quite unpleasantly "No, I meant I need a real nurse." She needed help getting the pt back to bed and as I opened my mouth to tell her I could probably handle that, she sent me out pretty flatly. We continued the tiff at the station with my nursing instructor who confronted the nurse. I had been in the medical field in and out of the military for about 11 years at that point. Here's the fun part. The same nurse applied for a position and came for an interview at our trauma center after I became a nurse. I was in on the interview and as she walked into the room, the look on her face when she saw me was beautiful. She didn't get the job. It wasn't simply because of me, her interview sucked and nobody liked her. Every now and then what goes around really does come around.

The old phrase of "nurses eat their young" is entirely true. It has been going on for generations. Now there is finally a "term" for it. It is called "lateral" or "horizontal' violence and includes the situations that you all have posted above as well as backstabbing behavior, stopping a discussion when another nurse walks into the room (intimidation tactics), exclusion from information and many other things. There are some theories that exist as to why this happens, e.g., the oppressed becomes the oppressor. When these things are actually directed toward one person in particular (and not just a general "feeling" of hostility in a department or facility), it is actually illegal as it constitutes a "Hostile Work Environment", which is covered in Federal law. I have had it happen to me many a time as I've been a RN for 27 years and worked my way through school as a CNA, so I've been around these situations for many years. Now that there is the Fedreral law, I suppose that I could sue a few places, but one has to pick their battles/decide where they want to put their energy. I had that situation occur recently at a home care company where I have been a RN for as long as my supervisor has been alive! Lol! I was upset because they were sending another nurse (without as much experience) to my primary client behind my back. When i asked the young supervisor about it, she said that "there was nothing wrong with another pair of eyes"-that isn't what bothered me, I informed her; it was the fact that I, the primary nurse, had never been told. She then told me that as a manager, she "had the right" to do anything that she wanted to do. Perhaps that is true but it is unethical, mean, sneaky and smacks of mistrust, which is what I told her. When she said that she'd be glad to do a supervisory visit with me (which she'd already done on several occasions and found my skills to be superb), I replied, "whatever"-not in a way that meant that I didn't care, but whatever would make them happy. I was just concerned about the client as the other nurse and I were getting drastically different BP readings and I didn't know why. Then she was aghast and said, "Did you just say 'whatever' to me"?! Then she hung up on me. I then rec'd a call from the owner of the co.-(a non-nurse) and she was terminating my employment a I was "too independant" for them. Good old "lateral violence". I'm not taking them to court-I have too much other work to do, but I DID send the Co. owner a letter and an article about lateral violence and how it creates a hostile work environment, which is illegal...so hopefully this will enlighten her and it won't happen to someone else. What does anyone else think?