Nurses, especially in large, busy, urban medical-surgical units such as the one in which I worked, are often forced to care for a high volume of patients, and work back-to-back shifts. It is difficult to take time to mentor a fellow nurse on an understaffed unit. Furthermore, tempers are often short, and tensions between colleagues, particularly between experienced nurses and younger colleagues still 'learning the ropes,' can be strained.
Of course, such an attitude is highly counter-productive. The reason tensions run so high on nursing units is largely because of under-staffing. Poor relationships between older and younger nurses simply increase the high rate of attrition of younger nurses. When older and/or more experienced nurses schedule younger nurses for more unpleasant shifts, they may 'win the battle' of gaining privileges, but 'lose the war' to improve conditions for themselves, if they drive more nurses from the profession. As more and more nurses age out of the profession, it is essential to increase the numbers of people who stay with nursing in the future, and this requires creating a more cohesive unit friendly to nurses at all stages of experience.
Older nurses can adopt an embittered 'been there, done that' persona when dealing...
There is also often a fear of a shift in the hierarchy of power of a nursing unit -- but horizontal hostility simply undermines the needed trust required to glue a unit together, emotionally, and does not improve nurses' bargaining position with management for better conditions (Nurses, 2010, All Nurses).
References
Applicable Joint Commission Standards. (2010). Joint Commission. Retrieved September 24,
2010 at http://www.jointcommission.org/NewsRoom/PressKits/Behaviors+that+Undermine+a+Culture+of+Safety/app_stds.htm
National Institute of Nursing Research. (2010). NINR. Retrieved September 24, 2010 at http://www.ninr.nih.gov/
Nurses eating their young. (2010, June 20). All Nurses. Retrieved September 24, 2010 at http://allnurses.com/nursing-articles/nurses-eating-their-486865.html
Scientifically-based research vs. evidence-based practices and instruction. (2010). Behavioral
Institute. Retrieved September 24, 2010 at http://www.behavioralinstitute.org/FreeDownloads/TIPS/Scientifically%20Based%20Research%20vs%20Evidence%20based%20practices.pdf
