What is up with toxic nursing?
When I first got into nursing, I did not believe the gossip. ICU and the ER are always fighting. The floor does not take report. The ER lies in report and they NEVER check the patient's skin. Doctors are jerks and never listen. The list goes on forever.
So what's up with the toxicity? I get it. I have, on occasion, found myself frustrated with some of my coworkers. They never clean up their rooms, don't stock the carts, or do not finish tasks that are clearly very old. It is so easy when you are busy to point out what other people are doing wrong because you are overwhelmed.
Side note here...I am very lucky now. I work in a supportive environment where most of the people I work with are the best people I have met and some of them make ER nursing look so easy.
Someone recently asked me though, as they were thinking about making a move to a permanent position if what they heard was true. They heard that the environment was toxic, people were jumping ship and it was a bad place to work. To say I was shocked was an understatement. Literally, the best place I have ever worked because of the people. So this is what I said...I do think that if toxic people come into an environment where it isn't cut-throat and they aren't used to that, it takes a while for that behavior to go away. Why? Because you have been on your own for so long working beside people who are burnt out and negative about the career field in general. At my work, we do not leave rooms dirty to avoid patients, someone will always help you (even if they don't care for you personally), and the nurses that I work with CARE. For me, the last point is the most critical.
Sometimes I have to tell myself to stop. Negativity in nursing is cancer. We have extraordinarily bad days in the Emergency Room. Sometimes we are negative and sometimes we have dark humor about the stuff we see. We see the best and the worst of the spectrum of human behavior. It takes a lot to deal with what we do sometimes.
Changing the environment of nursing is up to us. It is easy to get in a group, get comfortable, forget to help our neighbor, and support each other when times are tough, but remember to do it because that nurse may be having the worst day of his / her life.
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