Professionalism and Pride of a RN
Nursing is a very demanding and stressful at times, but the high professionalism that exists in nursing needs to be recognized and acknowledged. Nursing needs to switch gears and start promoting the positive aspects of nursing and not focus on those few individuals with negative behaviors. I would like to add a different viewpoint to the statement that "nurses eat their young". For the last 15 years I have been a nurse manager and I am tired of hearing the saying "Nurses eat their young". This is a very general statement and is only representative of a small handful of nurses. This is not the nursing profession that I love and see every day. When you say that all experienced nurses are eating their young, you are sending out a message that has a negative impact on the image of nursing as a profession. Nursing is a profession where the greater majority of nurses act as positive role models for the newer nurses.
There are very few jobs that have demands like those of a nurse, but nursing attracts compassionate caring individuals not tigers who devour the newer less defensive individuals. I am not saying that there are not negative stories out there but it is not the standard you see with the majority of RN's working in the health care field. What I see on a regular basis are experienced nurses warmly accepting and mentoring new nurses to our great profession of nursing. There is no profession that gives you the opportunity to impact and touch so many lives. Nurses are proud and intelligent and have a natural compassion to take care of people and to the new nurses entering our profession. I find that the experienced nurses find it very rewarding to be supportive and act as mentors. The experienced nurse is the one who understands how much we need to have the new nurses carry on as they leave and retire from nursing. I have seen compassion, caring, encouragement, pride and patience when the experienced nurses helps the new nurse transition into the role from student nurse to the professional nurse. Attracting new nurses to our profession cannot be done with negative behavior.
As a Nurse Manager I have disciplined nurses with negative behavior but, they are only a few and not the majority. I understand the staffing issues, the demanding hours, the difficult patients and demanding family members but the bottom line is that a nurse is there for her patient and any nurse who does not put her patient first should question if she belongs in the nursing profession. Nursing is all about caring for the patient. I find the majority of nurses to be competent, friendly and very willing to mentor and teach the less experienced nurses. All of us have started out as new nurses and have been taught by more experienced nurses. We need to focus on the positive aspects and not make negative statements like nurses eat their young.
I want to acknowledge and say thank you to every RN for being the professional that they are. I want to say thank you for giving guidance and support to the newer nurses. All nurses need to highlight the positives and spread the pride they feel about nursing. All nurses need to promote everything that is good about being an RN and don't let negative statements impact the image of a nurse. Nurses are very special individuals and deserve all the recognition for doing the job that they do. Nurses that eat their young are truly in the minority not the majority.
