To be put off nursing because of the 'bitchiness'

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Not my words but those of people I know who either still are or who have been and then left.

I'd love to do this but the thought of this really puts me off. Anyone who does nursing have you found it's a particular difficult environment for this sort of thing?

One of my best friends qualified a couple of years ago and said it's very cliquey and bullying / nastiness between colleagues seems to be rife. She's leaving and has said most people she qualified with have left too for a mix of reasons, this being one of them.

I'm a solicitor myself but have been wanting a career change and have always wanted to do this but it never worked out. I can take crap from the public, but I don't think I'd cope well with it from colleagues.

I previously worked in nursing and was actually on the wrong side of this and was part of the bitchiness, I didn’t realise until I left. I wasn’t a bully in school, far from it, and it was unlike me to be so unkind. I was mainly just upset with the managers favouring new starters and their demands over the staff who had been with the company for years, some of us were the very first members of our team which made it sting worse, it wasn’t fair for me to take it out on the wrong people though. When I left I was looking for an old message in a group chat that we all had purposely excluded anyone who started after a certain date from as we didn’t like them (we didn’t even know them really😖) and that’s when I read back some messages and realised wow I was a nasty cunt.

I ended up working along side one of our “victims” again, as while I’m not in nursing I still work in healthcare, and we actually get on so well now and consider each other real friends regardless of work. I spoke to her once about it, and ofc apologised, and she said she didn’t think we was bitchy as such but they definitely felt alot of hostility from us and could tell we wasn’t fans of any new starters :/ She actually left in the end as when more of the “original staff” left the newer people were made to feel more welcome and ended up being the exact same to even newer people and she saw first hand some of the nasty things that were said about people.

While I’d never excuse behaving like that I do just think it’s the culture of it all unfortunately. We was a very small team, maximum of 10 of us including our manager, so it was harder to accept new people into our silly little clique especially when we felt like they made our job harder. We were also all women and quite young, I was 23 but the youngest we worked with was 20 and the eldest was very early 30s. Luckily I’ve grown since then and can recognise when I’m being dragged into something nasty and will speak up and say it’s not right.

The thing is you might not see it. I previously worked on the wards my students are now on. Some of the qualified staff now bullying my students had been friends and colleagues for years and had always been and are still lovely to me and I guess to most of their colleagues. But can be vile to students. Or to more junior staff/NQ.

I've been in healthcare for 18 years, initially as a HCA and then as a nurse and I've never found it to be particularly bitchy/cliquey.

@QuebecBagnet i trained here as a student too

This in bucketloads

I'm only a band 5 now (been there and done the ward management stuff) and have many years experience in a very specialised area. Seen many cliques form and break up, sighed inwardly when certain combinations of staff are on shift because of the negative effect it will have on ward atmosphere.
Sadly the loudest most confident types often work their way up the ladder quickest in the NHS, those good at self promotion and not necessarily the best people managers, hardest workers, most knowledgeable.... it's ever thus been the same.
Fwiw we have probably 10 guys on our unit. All very different personalities with their own idiosyncrasies but they really don't seem to engage in the same sniping. And I've never heard junior docs bitch about their colleagues either, far more supportive for the most part....

id say so. I work on a large ward with lots of staff. It’s not just nurses tho. But it can be very cliquey and bitchy behind each other’s back.I ignore it though, don’t get involved and just go to work and do my thing. Not everyone is of course like that. I work with some lovely people too.

I worked in nurseries many years ago and they were just a bitchy though I put that down to staff being young. …. But obviously not just that!

I agree I’d imagine some don’t see it. Staff on my ward talk about how they work so well together and amazing team blah blah. But it tends to be if your face fits, if you are part of certain cliques. You won’t see it if you are part of that group even some of the loveliest staff are in amongst it.

Its the outsiders that cotton on to it, see it or sometimes affected by the bullying side.

My sister was a nurse and left for this reason, said they were awful.
I think it's a woman thing, I work on public sector and I hate working with and for women
Only my experience of course and I'm sure not all.

No worse than anywhere else.

Work in a good trust with good management and you won't find it bitchy, but that's true of most work environments. Work in a place we're management is poor and staff feel undervalued and yes it's much more likely to be bitchy, again that's in most work places, not just NHS or care homes.

Train as a radiographer instead - we are all awesome!!!!!

Amazing how the school bullies went on to become nurses I mean I never did figure that one out.

This is so sad. When I worked on the wards (nursed for over 40 years), I loved working with student nurses. Seeing things through new/younger eyes, watching them progress, seeing them become confident nurses - brought many a tear to my eye when they finished their placement.

It's really depends on the area you work. I have worked in places that are very cliquey and it doesn't feel like a team at all.

I've been in my new nursing role for 5months now and we are a literally a family and I felt that way from day one.

My partner works in admin for a trust that has loads of great nurses leaving because of bullying and nastiness. Management are only just coming round to the notion that a couple of unpleasant characters need dealing with.

I temped in a hospital. Nasty cliques at lunch breaks. They wouldnt include you at table. Crap really.

When you find that every woman you work with is "awful", when you hate working with all women, there is a common denominator. And it's not bitchy women - it's you.
With your sexist tropes & internalised misogyny.

This thread worries me, My DD 18 would like to study MH nursing next year at Uni. She is a quiet, thoughtful person and im now worried she will be eaten alive!

You would never, ever say such a thing about any other group. So don't say it about women.

Not in my experience 😂

It is NOT a 'woman thing'! What a sexist, mysoginistic attitude! There are plenty of bitchy men working in nursing and care!

From a different angle, exDH is a radiographer (20 + years) and he has always, always said that he avoids nurses like the plague (male and female FWIW). There are a few up their own arse doctors, but on the whole they're fine, apparently. His special face he pulls is for the nurses who he finds, in the main, difficult. He's well liked and laid back, and would never say to any work colleagues his thoughts, but generally he has little time for many nurses. That does tell you quite a bit.

Porters, on the other hand, he loves them! And he's very, very fond of the nursing assistants.

Worked as a nurse and worked as a social worker . Both full of very stressed out people! I have met good folk I consider the salt of the earth and nasty people in both professions . And both are female dominated with the minority males getting all the jammy promotions!

And a good friend is a midwife. She's a lovely, gentle person and i can see how patients would like her. Whist loving her job, the cliqueyness and pass remarkable colleagues make her working hours tough quite a bit. When she went through a marriage breakup 18 months ago there was little sympathy when she needed some time off, and not much said when she returned. That's really sad.

I work in a very female heavy profession (28 years) and have only known (with a very few exceptions) supportive, fun, caring colleagues. So it must be the high pressure of nursing that can do this, perhaps?