Alright- my second semester of nursing school is in full swing. Getting my butt kicked, trying to figure out baffling electrolytes, trying to jam all this new info into my brain. All in all, its pretty fascinating. I'm happy in nursing school. I'm enjoying the mechanisms, gears, and gadgets of nursing healthcare.
Alas, someone has thrown a wrench into my enjoyment of education.
Some of you nurses suck. You are unbelievably childish, and all of my instructors and more experienced advisors tell me to just ignore it. FUCK ignoring middle school level attitude, FUCK not having conflicts over stupid things.
Hey experienced nurses- How far has ignoring unprofessional behavior got you? Congratulations! Have another serving of being looked down on and a side dish of co-dependant unacceptable behavior. Nursing needs to change.
I'M MAD AS HELL AND I'M NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE!
I go to a nursing school that is part of the county system. There are several hospitals in my county. For the first time, my 10 person clinical group is doing clinicals at a farther away county hospital that has relationships with public and private nursing schools already established in that area.
FOR SOME REASON, THE NURSES AT THIS HOSPITAL DO EVERYTHING THEY CAN TO SHIT ON US, THE NURSING STUDENTS.
It's completely baffling. Why do the nurses give a shit what school is doing their clinical rotation at their hospital? It's all the same nursing students. We haven't bumped any schools. All we do is come in there two days a week, wipe someone's ass for them, if we are lucky, plant a Foley, put down a NG, set up an IV. (None of which has happened yet.)
Here is the response my clinical group has gotten from the nurses:
Really nice nursing student: "Could you tell me the name of the nurse manager? This is our second day on the floor and I'm filling out a scavenger hunt of who everyone is and where everything is at on this unit."
Shithead Coordinator: "You don't know who the nurse manager is? That's really sad. Really sad."
Me: "Excuse me. Could you help me access the labs on the computer system?"
Nurse Manager: "You don't have access to labs. That would be a liability. You are a liability."
Me: "We have access to the same system at county. We need the labs to fill out our clinical write-ups."
Fucking Nurse Manager: "No you don't. There’s no way you have access."
Me: "Of course we do. We also have to chart on the computer as well. We can even access labs from our college."
Nurse Manger: "What?" she looks around the floor to make sure everyone is watching, "That's a HIPPAA violation. That's wrong."
Me: "Our college is on the hospital campus."
My instructor introduces the nurse manager. She does not say hello. She does not say welcome. She says, “You may not use the nurse break room. You may not bring backpacks to this unit. You may not use the conference rooms. If you want to access labs find the nurse for that patient and have her sit with you while you record your information.”
Walks away.
Hello. Fuck you. Goodbye.
I am not a liability to any of the nurses on that floor. I am a liability to my fucking liability insurance company and to my instructor. duh. Telling me I'm a liability is childish bullshit. Something else is going on.
Then they snuck in the LVN students. Now we "share" patients. The LVN's come from a rip-off private college. (35K a year). We come from the county, same as the hospital. What the fuck?
None of the nurses will answer questions.
Does anybody out there know what is going on?
How can nurses act like such children? So remarkably unprofessional.
And the best part: As county student nurses we are eligible to be student nurse workers. The nurse recruiter (who is so passive aggressive she is basically just aggressive) schedules the THREE DAY SITE ORIENTATION THAT WE ALREADY WENT THROUGH AT THE MAIN COUNTY HOSPITAL on the first three days of my nursing schools semester. She actually told me that she knew my instructors very well (which is a bold face lie, they had only met once) and that she was sure they wouldn’t mind if I didn’t show up for the first three days to attend orientation. Miss any of the classes the first week of school and you get yourself dropped from the roster. This nurse has 3 masters degrees. NP, MSN admin, MSN education. She looks like she is on the tail end of a 2 week vicodin run. Nodding eyes, tiny pupils, unbridled hostility. 3 masters. What a waste.
Not a single male nurse on the entire unit I might add.
Sometimes nursing, you really bother me. Nurses are so quick to behave so bad, so easily. A true disappointment.
NOBODY TREATS NURSES WORSE THAN HOW THEY TREAT THEMSELVES.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
I just want my R.N., lady.
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8 comments:
I had one of those types of units when I was in nursing school. True fucking disaster that almost destroyed my life. The instructor was cut from the same cloth as the nurses on that awful unit/hospital.
Later, I was administratively changed to a different hospital, one that I thought I'd never visit. It was great! I did the "extern" thing there, and now work there as an RN. Totally opposite from that first hospital.
So I'd get the hell out of that place the next semester, unless you are doing a speciality rotation. Then, wotta ya going to do?
I groove on your post labels. ;) Your blog definitely counteracts the OMG PERKINESS going around at my school! I hope my experience ends up somewhere in the middle. Scary stuff.
Thanks for reading!
Nothing makes me feel better than knowing other people have had to deal with the same or similar crap.
Now we have to ask ourselves, why is this going on?
Break these cycles of stupidity and unprofessionalism.
You do your best. I try to take care of myself first, since no one else will. To be honest, I think a lot of nurses like being victims.
I'll probably start out in E.R. Just because it's a kick and a good way to pay off debt. But I envision myself burning out pretty quick. Maybe move to an ICU or some specialty cardiac unit.
My goal is to move out of LA and seek employment at a Magnet hospital.
I don't know if they are any better than any other hospital but it's worth a shot.
Dude
Welcome to the job! Having said that sadly this is one of the many unpleasant realities you will have to adjust to as a nurse.
While what I'm about to say won't make you feel better and certainly won't justify anything, it seems (sadly) very little has changed in nursing education. Keep in mind of course I graduated 19 years ago!
What you describe here is the normal way people behave in bureaucracies, with those higher in the hierachies shitting on anyone below them. It is fatal to your sanity and health to personalize any of this. I seriously doubt that any profession escapes it.
Nice to see i'm not the only one with a bad experience of nursing, i've finally clawed my way to the last three months of my course with no help or support from the university with the "best support system in the the country", my ass! and the only thing that this past three years has done for me, is make me so ashamed of nursing, that i no longer want to be a part of it. Nursing is no longer a vocation, it's barely a profession, the whole institution is a shambles and a farce and anyone trained within the last ten years is an incompetent fool who cares for no one but themselves and the image they create. I have met very few genuine nurses, who actually give a shit about the patient, most of the people on my year's intake were more wrapped up in their biomed and pharmacology, giving little or no thought to the nursing aspect of the job; while i understand that a knowledge of anatomy and physiology and pharmacology is essential, we are not trainging to be anatomists, or physiologist's, we're training to be NURSES. I feel that the entire profession has fucked itself over and it scares me to think that in ten years time, there will be no genuine nurses left, very few who care, very few who actually come into the job because they wanted to be a nurse. I know this sounds like rambling, but i'm so filled with rage at the end of my career before i've even started, that i've yet to find a way to put it all into coherent sentences.
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