Aibu to want to leave nursing because people are so fucking rude!!!

[Rabs6]

Iv been nursing for 11 years, worked hard for my nursing degree and am currently studying for my masters. Bare minimum I do about 2hours a week of continuing learning just to keep up to date with what's going on in my field.
Im good at my job and have lots of knowledge.

The problem I have with my job isn't the pay or the hours it's the fact that about 70% of the patients I see or their families are fucking horrible!! At least every day I get spoken to like shit from at least one person I'm trying to help and I'm so sick of it!!
In what other job would you work so hard to have such little respect? And why do so many people feel its OK to use their nurse as an emotional punch bag!!!

Some people are just awful. I have overall good experience with hospital and NHS staff, but have come across a few who seem to be in the wrong job.

I remember being taken into A&E by ambulance, after fainting in the street . I'd already vomited on the pavement where I'd collapsed. I was fine lying down on the bed, but they needed that and put me in an upright chair. I felt so dizzy, sick and faint, I collapsed on the floor again. This nurse who seemed quite senior came over and was trying to be so firm with me. Saying "What are you doing? You can't be on the floor! Come on! Get back in your chair! I'm not picking her up! She got herself down there, she can get herself up!"

Maybe she thought that I was drunk or on drugs, but I was just, you know, ill. I was trying to say that I couldn't get up, and I felt so sick. She tried to pull me back on the chair and I threw up all over her. She huffed off to get changed, and I didn't see her again.

Often there are things that are beyond your abilities or control that patients and families are angry, frustrated or worried/scared about and you can bear the brunt of it.
I try not to take it personally as they haven't chosen me to be there, I just am. So I listen to them and if I can help practically in anyway I will.

Try working in a restaurant or a shop..you are seen as the lowest of the low then, and treated accordingly.

I try to remember patients are sick and scared, family members worried.

Get into injectables. Loads of £££ in the beauty industry too. Everywhere you look women look like overstuffed pillows, it’s big business.

However, arseholes are everywhere 🤷🏻‍♀️

Maybe have a look into a different area of nursing. Such as specialist nurse or in the community?
Most of my patients and families are lovely and appreciative of our service x

My last dealings with a nurse was the other week with my ill father in A&E... I asked if I could wait with him in the corner until he was seen (very quiet, max 4 other people there) and was met with rolled eyes and a “we ARE in a pandemic you know!” When a very simple “I’m afraid not” would suffice. It was just unnecessary and unfortunately very similar to most other interactions I’ve had with NHS staff. I’m not entirely sure why they think dismissive, arrogant and frankly rude behaviour is something permitted and acceptable?

Also, drag lifts. I work in private healthcare and we would NEVER perform or permit drag lifts, yet it seems to be the done thing in the NHS

Obviously not all nurses are like this etc, and it’s horrible for you that you have experienced abuse, nobody should have to in the course of their work.

People can be so shitty.. but you get this in any public facing job.
I’m a receptionist at a GPs surgery, so I really am the scum of the earth 😂 and get treated accordingly. I think the problem is that the bad ones, if you don’t have a thick skin (I do!), stick with you more than the lovely ones. I go into work every day and I am pleasant and kind and helpful. I know I do all I can for people and if they don’t appreciate it and choose to be arseholes, that’s a glaring issue with them, not with me, so it doesn’t really bother me.

I feel for you OP. I come from a much maligned industry (especially on mumsnet) so most interactions with clients came from a place of them being critical from the outset and I've had so much abuse, but it was only over the phone and can't compare to a caring profession which I imagine must be very tough.

Thing is despite preconceptions my team genuinely did want to provide a great service but the stress meant that loads left. I remember working a few months in the summer as the only one left technically able to provide a service that several should do (I'm sure it was at least partially management's fault but that didn't help me) and was working extremely long hours to make sure everything was done for everyone. It wasn't really the abuse that upset me the worst but comments like "what have you been doing with this all day" (despite updates to manage expectations) and without the understanding that what I'd actually been doing was processing literally hundreds of others, from 6am to at least 9pm, everyday, without a lunch break. I got one client the result they wanted which was an exceptional achievement giving their circumstances (and I doubt they'd have got it elsewhere) and their only comments after were "I don't know what weird short hours they work but you only get updates at about 8pm and 6am" when the fact is the hours I was meant to work were between 9-5 and I was there early and late to help them and other clients, unpaid. Not the client's problem I agree, but I made sure they didn't miss out in any way and still got a better service than anywhere else so it was a shame everything was met with such scathing comments.

Still makes me cross now! Most were just bog standard abuse though. When I took over the team things later things totally changed.

@CorianderLord that’s appalling. I don’t know if I’d have gone into the profession now and given how much I love my job that’s a depressing thing to say. Even in the last 10 years I’ve taken jobs which are a bit below-the-radar so as to avoid that shit. Solidarity. Is it Twitter?

@flatulencebythebucket

Are you doing a good job?

Most people have terrible stories about the NHS...my grampa was getting antibiotics for pneumonia recently & has seen the doctors regularly for this for 2 years...it has now turned out to be advanced lung cancer & has months to live.

It also took me 2 years to get my kids adenoids removed despite a constant runny nose...I find that google knows more than most doctors etc.

I was still out clapping but a lot of people have a history with the NHS & maybe it's hard to let this go.

You've got options; of the NHS is so awful, just go private. 🤷🏻‍♀️

In my trust the biggest risk to staff is assault. Over every other risk there is.
That actually disgusts me.

Everyone dealing with the public has this but luckily only with a minority of twats!

I'm polite to anyone who works in healthcare and I'm sorry your considering leaving because people are just horrible.
It's so sad and why they have to be like this I'm not sure. I understand the frustration you must be feeling.

Unfortunately this isn’t something which happens solely in your profession. I work with the public, have done for years, and it never ceases to amaze me how awful people can be. I used to think that most people shared the same consideration as me, and I still give people the benefit of the doubt, but I appreciate now that a lot of people can be obnoxious. The nastiness has certainly escalated during covid.

I think most patients and family end up being rude when they are given sub-obtimal care. Friends and family that need to use the NHS all seem to only get treated with respect and decency after having to complain. Not all NHS workers are heroes some are bad at their jobs and treat patients like shit. If people are always rude to you maybe you need to have a look at the care you are providing.

I'm a healthcare assistant and I'm a few weeks away from going on maternity leave but im adamant I dont want to go back after. Im babk staff as well and I just find that they don't give a shit about us at all. Patients and staff alike are rude as hell and you're treated like a second class citizen for being bank staff rather than temporary, when actually if it wasn't for us they'd be up shit creek when someones goes sick. But I've been in healtvcare for such a long time now I feel like I cant do anything else and I'm stuck

I’m so sad to hear this. I saw how some people treated nurses when I was on a ward for an extended period of time a few years ago. It made me so sad and angry.

I think this is dealing with ghe general public. And the incidents escalate when people are stressed, anxious, Ill etc.

I have on occasion been what I would classify as rude to customer service agents, when I have had to complain, last week for example I was dealing with another missing delivery from the same shite courier company and I said to the woman “this is unbelievable, it’s every single delivery, how can it be this shit. As soon as I saw it was you guys delivering I knew it would be a fuck up” and my daughter said “mum you’re being rude, it’s not her fault”.

And she was right, it wasn’t the agents fault, and she must get it all the time, even though I was seriously annoyed about it, I still should have Just dealt with the issue at hand, the missing delivery and left it there. But the sheer annoyance of their cumulative fuck ups annoyed the hell out of me.

It must be awful and YANBU. I could never do your job and admire you. From the other perspective, unfortunately lots of the public have also had to deal with people like your rude colleagues from the other ward in the past, so perhaps have had bad experiences as a starting point, when they are already anxious and stressed. I think it's a vicious circle. I am still upset by my postnatal care ten years ago, which was essentially professional bullying. And in a physio appointment earlier this year, couldn't understand why the physio appeared to hate me upon arrival!

I’ve personally found the opposite, that most patients are lovely. You get the odd arsehole as you do in any area of life. Perhaps it’s the specialty you work in? Come to cancer services, the patients appreciate us.

To be honest the rudest people I meet are other staff! It’s easy to see how they constantly end up head to head in conflict with patients.

Any job dealing with the public is hard. Teaching is awful because rudeness from pupils is often in front of a whole class, very humiliating.

However, it's easy to focus on the horrible people because they have such a bad effect on you, and think that's they are the majority of your patients/pupils/customers/clients, when in fact they really aren't.

Getting things into perspective can make the tough bits more bearable.

There has been a couple of posters who have mentioned the staff and how they treat patients, the sighing when saying can I help you, which may as well be a bugger off. The 'we are in a middle of a pandemic' instead of 'afraid not'.

I can understand how this may come across and do completely get where your coming from. However, I also work in an area where I deal with a very high turnover of members of public coming through, whether its deliberately rude or unintentially off hand/stressed, many do actually have a negative effect on you.
Many of us now hopefully have a better understanding of mental health, the effects of stress etc the different kinds of abuse and how it can affect people and yet some seem to think that despite many years of dealing with people like this, we should still be able to stick a smile on our face, pretend it hasnt happened or that the customer is always right and crack on.
It just isnt possible, the 'public' to need to understand that whilst not every member of the public is personally responsible, many are for this crappy behaviour and it does take its toll, to expect people to take it and not be affected is not on.
Sometimes its not the rudeness either its the 'not thinking' and asking seemingly daft questions and then being surprised when the person answering you replies in a slightly snarky fashion because despite all the obvious factors indicating what the answer will be they have asked anyway, as has umpteen other people and its something that common sense should apply to. I know some arnt as bright as others but it doesnt account for most people dong this, some yes, but not many.

My attitude has changed from being very smiley, eager to please and the customer is always right to being polite, hoping the customer is happy and their going to be ok, being firmer than I used to be and saying no an awful lot more. I now stand up for myself more and actually when I have, it hasnt generated the complaints colleagues worried about when I stopped tolerating most of the crap. I does show that most of the rude and inconsiderate customers must then realise that they have been unreasonable and then just move on.

I must say as a nurse I was extremely lucky, I don't remember any incidents where patients or family were rude to me. But it may have just been the jobs I was in. I wouldn't dream if working in ED (A&E) or a medical ward, wouldn't suit me at all!

I work in Practice Education now as a Specialist Nurse, so the only people that are rude to me are the staff However again the good, lovely nurses far outweigh the bad.

It’s just the general public sadly. They’re hard work!