r/nursing

I’ve been nursing for 8 years through some difficult periods in healthcare. COVID was brutal — chronic understaffing, getting sick, fear of bringing illness home, burnout, exhaustion, patient aggression, and constant pressure. But honestly, one of the hardest parts of this profession hasn’t been the workload. It’s been the workplace bullying between staff.

I’ve worked across multiple departments in my hospital, specialized, floated, picked up overtime — and I’ve consistently seen a level of cattiness, gossip, and toxic behavior that’s honestly disappointing. In my experience, it’s often younger staff with inflated egos or people trying to establish some kind of social dominance on the unit. Meanwhile, many of the older, more experienced nurses tend to keep to themselves, stay professional, or are at least direct instead of engaging in gossip and backstabbing.

Some units genuinely have more drama than a restaurant full of high school employees, which is wild considering we’re in a profession built on ethics, teamwork, professionalism, and empathy.

What’s most frustrating is that a lot of the behavior has nothing to do with poor work ethic or being a bad partner. It’s just outright bullying. I’ve seen nurses intentionally isolate coworkers, spread rumors, and even tell new staff not to associate with certain people on the unit. That kind of behavior creates a toxic environment for everyone and pushes good nurses away from bedside care.

I stay in my own lane and focus on my patients, but it’s hard not to notice how much negativity exists between certain staff members. It’s disappointing to see educated professionals behave this way, especially in a field where support and teamwork are supposed to matter.

Has anyone else experienced this in their hospital or unit?

Hey everyone. I’ve (F26) been a labor and delivery nurse for about 3 1/2 years and have never been fired by a patient until yesterday. I had a 36 y/o 18.3 week patient who was admitted for glycemic control and DKA. Idk how other hospitals are, but at mine we keep our unstable antepartum patients on the l&d unit until they are stable enough to move to the antepartum floor. The patient had been on the floor for about an hour and had just gotten her 2 NS boluses and needed an accucheck and for her insulin drip to be hung. I go in the room and introduce myself and she already seems to be in a mood. I don’t think too much of it because I understand being in the hospital SUCKS, especially if you have kids at home and a life you were living. I tell her it’s time for an accucheck and ask if that’s ok. She said “no, but I don’t really have a choice so whatever”. I set my things up and then ask her for a finger to stick. She gives me the NASTIEST look and goes “What do you need to do that for? They’ve been using my IV. I’m not about to let yall stick me all night.” I was shook because since when do we regularly get blood from an IV for a blood sugar? I understand if you’re already drawing labs and don’t want to stick the patient again but WHATEVER. Your body, your choice. I go get the stuff to get blood from her IV and ask her for her arm to put the tourniquet on her and she goes “what do you need that for? They didn’t use it the last time” with a scowl. I calmly explain to her that we typically use a tourniquet to get the blood flowing but I can try without it. She starts mumbling about how she’s tired of being “tied up” and whatnot. Of course to my luck, I’m not able to get the blood from this sluggish 20G in her AC. I tell her I need the tourniquet and she lets me use it and I’m still not able to get it. So I went and got another nurse and she was able to get it. I guess that just set my whole night up for failure.

I’ve already typed out so much just about our first interaction and don’t really have the space and bet no one wants to read everything. So I’ll make some bullet points of things that occurred:
- she had two peripheral IVs because we were always told that D5 1/2 NS (w/ or w/o potassium was incompatible with an insulin drip but pharmacy ended up telling us otherwise later)
- her potassium read critically high and pharmacy wanted a lab redraw before giving us the OK to switch her fluids to the D5 w/o potassium but she was refusing sticks AND one IV had D5 1/2 NS w/ potassium running through it so we couldn’t get her labs through those
- she fired the nicest resident I’ve ever met because he told her why we needed the labs and she kept saying we could stick her finger but how is that going to tell us about her potassium and everything else???
- she was an absolute ANGEL every time I had to get the attending because she was refusing everything I was supposed to do

But to sum things up, she has an issue about every single thing I do. She’s nice to the CRNA (we had to call her because the patient was refusing another IV so the CRNA had the idea to run the fluids through a double lumen and get the labs from the other IV she had, which I’m still confused about but WHATEVER) but just so rude to me. When the CRNA was struggling to get blood from her IV, I asked if it would be better if we switched her fluids to her other IV and got labs from the 18G one because it was larger and the patient immediately cut me off and said “I want to see how this works first and then we’ll see” and then stared at me like this for 5 seconds 👁️👄👁️. Whatever. I knew that IV was gonna stop working but you like it, I love it. And then when I went to put her blood pressure cuff on her she snapped at me and said “IT STILL HAS AIR IN IT”. Anyway, fast forward again and it’s time to get labs from the sucky IV. I was barely able to get any waste and knew the sugar was gonna read low, which it did. I told the chief resident because I knew she wasn’t gonna let me get a finger stick. The chief resident went in and talked to her and was basically yelled at and told to get out because “what part of no one is sticking me do you not understand” and then refused any type of treatment for her “low sugar”. They woke the attending up and he went in and talked to her and said “Ok. She said she’ll let us stick her finger but she doesn’t want you to do it.” Well glory hallelujah! I got fired before I crashed out on her because I was so livid. I don’t think a patient has ever affected me like that. It was so difficult to try to have empathy and think about what she was going through because she was nice to the other nurse that was helping me out, the attending, and the CRNA. I was nothing but kind to her. I’m trying to hard to swallow my pride because I know her thoughts or feelings about me do not undermine my expertise and ability to be a great nurse. I actually had a great rest of my night and helped a laboring TOLAC patient who ended up requesting a c section and had a beautiful baby girl.

If you made it to the end, thank you so much. I try not to bring my work home with me but this situation has pissed me off so much and I just needed to get it off my mind. Anyone else have stories about getting fired by patients for no reason to help cheer me up? Thanks!

My first thought is always small bowel obstruction 😭but really any severe GI condition / complication in general. I’m definitely influenced by the fact that I work on a superrrr GI heavy med surg floor at a hospital that specializes in a lot of complex colorectal surgeries and bariatric surgeries (including revisions) 😅.

The misery on a pts face after enduring the trauma of an NGT insertion so they don’t aspirate on their own poop haunts me more than anything else… Or the pts who end up having an abdomen stitched up like Frankenstein with every type of drain imaginable, a problematic ostomy, TPN & lipid dependence, opioid & antiemetic dependence, etc.

Every chronic and high acuity GI pt I encounter at work reminds me how much I take for granted. It’s so humbling to realize that being able to eat, drink, and poop is such a privilege.

Anyways, I’m curious to hear other ppls worst nightmare based on what they’ve seen at work. Do u think it’s biased towards ur specialty or is there a general “yea, just kill me if ______” consensus amongst nurses😂? I’m only a year into being an RN and only worked on a med surg floor so I’m sure I’ll probably develop a million more “greatest fears” as I move around lol…

I had a restraining order placed against me 7 months ago without my knowledge. I had a mental health (manic) episode and admitted to the police I was stalking my ex and that I needed help. They sent me to the psychiatric hospital. Found out I had bipolar and now on medication to control it.

It will soon expire soon but I was hoping to become an RN within the next 3 years. Although it's not a criminal case because it's civil I was wondering if I will be denied employment permanently for the rest of life and am I wasting time being in school? I want to know so I can drop out and not waste any money

I work at a clinical research organisation and I see a lot of applications from nurses. The clinical knowledge is usually strong. The cover letter almost always loses them the interview before anyone looks at the rest of the application.

The problem is not the experience. It is how the letter is written.

A CRO hiring manager is trying to answer three questions from your cover letter: do you understand what this role involves, does your nursing background prepare you for it, and are you going to be reliable in a compliance-heavy environment.

Most nursing cover letters open with a degree, list some experience, and close with something about being passionate about clinical research. None of that answers those three questions.

What actually works:

Open with a specific connection between your nursing background and the trial role. Medication administration under protocol, patient consent conversations, adverse event documentation, regulated ward procedures - these are all directly relevant to clinical research. Name them specifically in your opening.

Example opening: I am applying for the CRC role because my five years in oncology nursing, including direct involvement in patient consent discussions and adverse event reporting, maps directly to the site coordination responsibilities in your trial portfolio. That is a sentence that makes someone keep reading.

In the body, pick one or two things from your experience and explain why they matter for the specific role, not for clinical research in general.
Keep it to three paragraphs. Hiring managers are reading many applications. Get to the point.

Happy to answer questions about how nursing backgrounds translate for specific clinical research roles.

Some background- I (24F) have been in healthcare for the last 5 years as a phlebotomist and medical assistant. I’ve worked outpatient and inpatient, and I start nursing school this fall. My inpatient experience was probably the only regular exposure to more intense stuff, but I was just a phleb at 19 and was only in patient rooms for 5-10 min at a time. I’ve worked in outpatient surgery for 3 years now, so much different, lighter vibes.

A question I’ve always wondered, as someone who’s extremely emotional, how do you guys handle crying? I know all nurses are pretty empathetic people, but I’m really talking about the kind of people who cry easily (heartwarming moments, sad, touching, traumatic, you name it). Even when other people cry, good or bad tears, I typically cry. Random TikTok videos? Sobbing. It’s something I’ve been trying to work on for years, so far I haven’t cried in front of a patient (thankfully lol), but the idea of clinical rotation in L&D and seeing mom’s go through that amount of pain? Or comforting crying family members? I do recognize that I’ll be in like “work mode” and that I need to separate my feelings, but damn. How do you guys keep it together? I’ve worked alongside nurses for years, and the amount of strength and composure I’ve seen them portray is the reason I pursued nursing. It’s so admirable, and I want to be that strong for my patients in the future. Any tips/tricks on how you guys are able to stay so strong and hold the tears back would be greatly appreciated.

Please be nice, I know I’ll make a great nurse, I think I’m just overly empathetic lol

Anybody else surprised a discharge to a facility ever happens?

There are so many barriers: morning labs came back and the kidney function continues to worsen (discharge cancelled), the patient's new oxygen requirement didn't undergo a respiratory activity and nocturnal study (discharge cancelled), the facility doesn't want the patient because they've been on continuous observation 1:1 in the last 24 hours, they don't want them because they've been on video monitoring in the last 24 hours, the one admitting nurse on site can't take the patient back after 12pm, social work needs to set up transportation and nothing's available, the resident has to put in the discharge order and prepare after visit summary in advance (they do it minutes before the ride is set to pick the patient up instead), the pharmacist then has to look over the meds to verify accuracy, then you have to print the after visit summary and look it over to give discharge education (or more realistically stuff it in a belongings bag as you rush to get them the hell out of the hospital), then you better have called the facility first thing in the morning and bounced around on the phone until someone begrudgingly has taken report, then get the patient's IV out, vitals taken (better look baseline!) get them dressed and pack their mountain of junk supplies and six hospital cups they want to take back with them, then call escort to wheelchair them to the pickup spot before the ride social work set up calls up and says they're leaving because you took so long.

I would say something like 80% of discharges to facilities are unpleasant, rushed experiences. Anyone else experience this?

What's the worst error you've either witnessed or know about occuring where you work?

I had a patient with a CBI and the nurse on shift before me fully inflated the foley balloon inside the pt's urethra and tore it, and then proceeded to not notice the significant amount of blood draining and also didn't document the CBI correctly overnight. I had to send the pt for imaging where the ruptured urethra was confirmed. 🙃

.... what about that one coworker everyone likes and quite influential (and you get why), but they don't seem to like you in specific?

I end up thinking I did something wrong and that I am the issue because this guy used to be nice to me for the first month and now barely talks to me and it's dead silence whenever we're together in a room alone. Whenever I try to start a conversation now, he replies curtly and that's it. He would also complain about some other coworkers to me yet he talks more with them (and we're talking laughing and all that) than with me which confuses me because we have some interests in common and we used to talk about them and now... nothing.

It's really getting on my nerves because I just started this job and he's the one doing orientation with me until the end of May...

Ultimately I know some will recommend I bring it up to him or that I just ignore it, but I just wanted to know if anyone else has dealt with this and how you handled it.

Thanks!

The 3 -12 hours, 4 days off, is so amazing that I won't even consider another position. When I see 5x8, I just can't even imagine going back to that after 12 years.

Every week is a vacation it feels.

How do you all enjoy 5x8?

Being a nurse in northeast Tennessee lately has honestly been discouraging. I work in the hospital and make $33/hour. On paper that sounds okay, but with how expensive everything has gotten, it really doesn’t go far. Groceries, mortgage, bills, car payment, gas, insurance… it feels like every paycheck is already gone before it even hits my account.

I work a mon-fri. I’ve been picking up tele side gigs and extra floor shifts on the weekends just to help make ends meet, even though bedside nursing has completely burned me out previously. The crazy part is I work myself to death mentally, physically, and emotionally, and still end up stressed about money. Some days I sit there thinking, “is this even real?”

I love helping people, but I’m tired. Tired of feeling like I have to constantly work overtime just to stay afloat. Tired of missing time with family because I’m chasing extra shifts.

Just curious how everyone else is surviving these days because life feels heavy lately.

I need input. I understand everyone’s situation is different, but I want an objective opinion.

I interviewed for a position today for one of the leading health systems in the state. I would basically be a consultant for home health agencies that are contracted by this health system and implement process improvement plans, do field audits, etc. Which is a huge passion of mine. I love making processes more efficient. The position pays $200k salary. Great benefits. The leadership said there could be 10-12 hour days. I would have the option to work from home or the office that’s 5 minutes away 2-3 days and the rest of the days would be visiting these agencies for meetings up to 100 miles.

My current position is a case manager in home health and supervisor. Pay is $120k and set 40 hours. Must work in the office about 15 mins away. Benefits pretty bad (40 hours PTO per year). Smaller family company but can be pretty toxic at times. Not really any growth opportunity.

Would you take the new job if offered just based on this limited info?

Will be lengthy so starting with TLDR: I had to do some post-mortem stuff for the first time, and though I completed everything I was minimally required and physically able to do considering it was change of shift, I felt like the help I received was severely lacking. Am I overreacting?

Some context:

1. New grad RN of 8 months working ms day shift. I have never cared for a comfort care patient on my own, never experienced patient death throughout nursing school or my short career. It’s all extremely new to me. I don’t really know what I’m looking at, what I’m looking for, what I should be doing for the family, the documentation, the phone calls, etc.
2. My preceptor warned me about which nurses I should and shouldn’t ask questions to because they’re mean, hence I’ve only talked to them if I really needed to. These two will be the break nurse and charge nurse.
3. Our day shift supervisors are out of the office for the time being, staff nurses have been rotating charge nurse. I understand it can be overwhelming.

Comfort care patient is to be discharged at 6pm. Family is at the bedside. Around 4:30-5, pt becomes unarousable, eyes half open, tachypneic, and sounds like snoring very loudly. Family thinks the time is coming. I tell charge nurse pt is not looking good and ask what I should do about the pending transport. Charge reiterates pt is cc, it’s expected, there’s nothing we can do, we can’t hold pt here until they pass.

Around 5:40, I go back to pt’s room. Pt’s quiet, family says they saw eyes roll back a few times, gasps for air infrequently. I go to my charge, but she’s busy getting updates from other nurses. I can’t find the break nurse.

5:55 I go back to pt’s room. Family thinks they just passed. I don’t know what I’m looking at or what to do. I go back to my charge, tell her about it, I call the doctor. The doctor’s phone number is unavailable and isn’t responding to texts. I see transport coming down the hall. The secretary is finding other phone numbers I can try calling. Charge is at the desk making the night shift assignment. I walk right up to her and ask who should I contact and what do I say? She tells me. Transport comes out to say they think patient is deceased, should we cancel transportation? Secretary tells them to give the nurse (me) a few minutes as I’m working on it.

6:04 MD messages that RN can pronounce death. Charge tells me to put the order in. I ask her to show me how. She tells me to get a second nurse to pronounce. I ask what am I doing, how do I do it? Charge tells the break nurse to help me. Break nurse opens up our hospital’s post-mortem documentation guidelines and asks me if I’ve read through it? (NO!) She then leaves it open for me to start reading when I’d much prefer for someone to just show me exactly what I need to do.

6:10 Secretary deals with transport and gets them to leave. A different nurse comes by to hand me a paper I need to fill out regarding coroner, donor’s network, mortuary, etc. I ask how do I complete this, what do I do? They point to the sections labelled “To be completed by RN,” and say I need to fill those parts out. That nurse walks away and says she’s going to grab one more paper from another unit.

6:15 I STILL haven’t gone back to the patient’s room since 5:55, neither has any other nurse. I get handed another piece of paper with so many freaking words and bullet points and am told to read through each item and see if it applies to pt to fill it out. At this point, I’m at the nurses’ station on the brink of tears about to cry because my patient is DEAD and why is NO ONE WILLING TO SIT DOWN AND WALK ME THROUGH THIS? I’m being handed paper after paper by someone who’ll walk away afterward as if I’m supposed to magically understand what anything means.

Break nurse and myself finally enter pt’s room to pronounce. She comforts the wife while I do the documentation. I am answering questions in Epic I don’t entirely understand. She focuses on comforting the family which is totally reasonable, but I really need some guidance on the documentation so I start hinting to her to please look at my computer screen.

6:30 We’re back at the nurses’ station and break nurse circles back to one of the papers I was given and asks if I’ve done those steps including body care. I tell her no, and I’ve never done body care before. She says do what the paper says and ask a CNA to help me. I became so fed up with the reluctant help that I’ve been getting that I sit down next to my charge and straight up say I have no idea what I’m doing so she can take my requests for help more seriously. I know that she’s overwhelmed with change of shift. She starts looking through the handouts with me and tells me that we don’t have deaths on our unit very often so she doesn’t know exactly what to do either (but she has been a nurse on that unit for 20 years!) She tries to look over which forms I need to fill out, and points to sections labelled “To be Completed by RN.” She tells me that I’ll have to pass some of this onto the next shift. I get on the phone with the donors network for 15 minutes, I ask break nurse to pass meds for one of my pts. I check on the family.

6:54 I ask charge if house supervisor has been notified. She does it then.

7:00 I start handing off my patients but get a call from someone else from the donors network. I’m on the phone for 30 minutes. Break nurse hands me a body bag and checks on a patient of mine whose call light is on. I thank her for her help and don’t see her again.

7:30 I finally start giving report to other nurses until a little after 8. Break nurse went home at some point. Charge went home at some point. I stay back to chart until 9:10. No one checked in with me afterward to see if I completed everything or needed help.

I felt like I was begging for help. I thought it was ridiculous that the charge didn’t so much as step into the patient’s room at any point when I was concerned and kept returning to her for guidance. I was left to make the phone calls and complete the paperwork when the night shift nurse I handed off to (also a new grad in my cohort) said that her break nurse took over all the calls and faxing and helped put the body in a bag. I wanted to quit that night. Everyone was willing to tell me what to do, no one actually stepped in to help me get it done.

Is it an overreaction to say I’m incredibly upset and angry at how this unfolded? Was the support that I got actually reasonable and I’m expecting too much? Is this a normal environment to work in? Is this an environment you’re willing to work in? I’m seriously contemplating putting in my 2 week notice. I cried that night and the following afternoon in a public train on my way to a concert! I understand patient deaths can be extremely distressing, maybe this was my version of it? And it’ll get better? Should I finish out my new grad program which ends in 4 months? I really don’t know.

OP wrote “Well when healthcare is labeled a “right” people don’t want to pay”.

Remember, the ADA lobbied for the separation of dental from medical coverage due to money. 💰

OP is a dentist, so he’s obviously educated and knows about taxes. Surely, they know that “free healthcare” isn’t free and that it’s covered by taxes (and no, taxes wouldn’t increase significantly for most Americans and it would be a savings due to no longer paying high insurance premiums and copays).

Does OP think that if people have the right to healthcare, they’re going to treat it as an endless shopping spree for unnecessary and frivolous services and care?

Us American nurses have all experienced this frustration at some point or another, either personally or with patients.

Just wanted to rant, have a good nigh everyone

I’m a newer nurse with a little over a year of experience, but I worked as a CNA for 12 years in long-term care. I recently experienced a situation that has been weighing heavily on me, and I’m looking for insight from others in the field. This was not my resident.

We had a 92-year-old resident who was clearly declining and was prescribed morphine and Ativan every two hours PRN for comfort measures. Despite obvious signs of discomfort and active dying, these medications were never initiated. The primary nurse on days reportedly chose not to start them, and the other nurses followed that lead.

The resident appeared visibly uncomfortable during care, especially with repositioning, and had progressed to mouth breathing. Still, no comfort medications were administered.

On the day she passed, she was transferred into a wheelchair and brought to the dining room for breakfast despite actively declining. The CNAs expressed concern multiple times and requested that she be returned to bed for comfort, but those requests were denied. As her condition worsened and signs of imminent passing became more apparent, staff again voiced concerns. Unfortunately, she ultimately passed away in her wheelchair without ever receiving comfort medication.

I understand that every nurse has different clinical judgment and experiences surrounding end-of-life care, but I’m struggling to understand the hesitation to provide ordered PRN comfort medications to a resident who appeared to be actively dying and uncomfortable.

I think I’m partly venting, but I’m also genuinely looking for advice on how others would navigate a situation like this, especially in a small facility where one nurse strongly influences the culture and decision-making of the team. This experience was deeply upsetting to witness, and I can’t stop thinking about whether more could have been done to provide this resident with dignity and comfort in her final hours.

ETA: I should have added this facility has no hospice care just the facility doctor putting orders in. And this patient unfortunately had no family

I feel like every nurse has that one shift they’ll never forget. If you’re comfortable sharing, what happened during yours?

Trying to add some new ones to my collection. Give me the best ones u got.

This is the first time in a long time I actually wanted to cry after report.
It was a busy shift—understaffed, busy group, etc etc. I had a pleasantly confused patient who kept removing his purewick. Suddenly at around 6 AM, an hour before shift change, he decides to yank out his IV and tele leads. Mind you, he paid no attention to them the whole night; he knew the IV and leads were there, but didn’t touch them until that time. I attempted to insert a new IV, but was unsuccessful. I asked my coworkers who weren’t busy if they can try/take a look, but no luck. Also, resource nurse was busy.
7 AM hits and I see who I’m giving report to… It’s one of the nurses who is a pain in the ass and dread giving report to (I.e. comes in, reads the charts to the point where she doesn’t need to write anything down during report, and quizzes you). I told her about the IV, purewick, and leads and she started spitballing a bunch of questions “well did you let the doctor know? So he doesn’t have an IV? Did you tell the resource nurse? Does he have anything to calm him down? Why didn’t you restrain him?” Blah blah blah *she proceeds to roll her eyes, calls their resource RN to start an IV, and starts mumbling to the resource RN about god knows what*
She’s acting as if I intentionally left the patient without an IV for 12 hours. Normally when a nurse is rude during report, I let it slide because it’s whatever but something about this day just made me so overwhelmed and tired to the point I wanted to lash out at her.
Man, why do patients always start acting up before shift change and why do some nurses have to be so b*tchy?

EDIT: I’m back again tonight. I kid you not guys the patient just pulled out his IV during shift change and me being the better person did not get mad at day shift nurse. See how easy that was? 😌