Why Are Nurses So Mean?

 The question seems ridiculous to anyone who doesn’t work in a medical environment. The average person who works in an office would find the question strange. You don’t hear people ask why accountants or administrate assistants are so mean. It’s just unheard of.

However, in the medical world, nurses are known for being mean and nasty. And it’s not just patients who have this opinion. The people who ask this question the most are new nurses.

New nurses wonder why when they go to work they are met with rudeness, nasty attitudes, and an all around mean behavior. Even nurse recruiters will hear stories from new nurses about how poorly they are treated in hospitals and clinics by other nurses.

So, why?  Why are nurses so mean.

Are Nurses Mean or Is This Misnomer?

First off, let’s discuss the question and see if it needs to be corrected. Are nurses mean or is this a myth.

Well, not all nurses are mean. There are many people who go into nursing and have positive attitudes. However, a common story that you hear over and over is that new nurses hit the floor and are met with incredibly nasty and mean treatment from senior nurses.

This behavior goes unchecked because of the environment. Remember, nurses do not work in a professional office environment. Hospitals, clinics, and government facilties have different standards than corporate America.

So the end result is that poorly behaved nurses can ruin the work experience for the good nurses who show up to do their jobs.

Ok, So Nurses Are Mean: What Gives?

The first thing to remember is that nurses are not professionals. They work in the medical field. They are not working in a corporate environment.

Unlike people who went to college and studied something such as Finance, Marketing, Communications, or even a more classical liberal arts field such as Art History or English, nurses having a nursing degree from a nursing school.

The environment of a nursing school is totally different than a traditional college and certainly different from a University.

Nursing school is akin to a trade school and while many nurses act with a sense of professionalism, they often find themselves surrounded by people who are not cultured or aware of how civilized professionals are to act.

Also, it must be acknowledged that nurses work in very rough environments. They deal with mentally ill criminals, homeless, drug overdoses, gunshots, and all other sort of ailments. A nurse will have to deal with human waste, bodily discharge, and other noxious smells and sights.

This is not something that a normal corporate person has to deal with.

The environment that a nurse has to work in does not involve professional behavior. Patients often scream obscenities at the nurses, which you can tell is a big stressor for the working nurse.

This sort of behavior isn’t professional and it causes a sort of chain reaction. Nurses deal with unprofessional behavior and so in turn they act rude and nasty to people. The environment that the nurse works in causes this sort of behavior.

Are Nurses Mean to Each Other?

Yes, absolutely. Nurses are incredibly mean to each other as any new nurse will attest to. Some nurses believe that there is a pecking order in the hospital and therefore they are entitled to be mean and nasty to younger nurses who are just starting out.

Nurses who are in nursing school are most likely to experience the mean and nasty nurse behavior. During clinicals, nursing students routinely run into senior nurses who behave in a mean manner to them.

Again, part of this is the environment. If you are working in a hospital then you’re going to work in a chaotic environment. Many of the staff will not be nurses, many will be techs, patient care workers, or orderlies. A huge number of the personal staff at a hospital are going to have very little formal education. In fact, hospital work is one of the best jobs for both felons and high school graduates who did not go to college.

So, a nurse might be working side by side with someone who was a former felon and is now working as a patient care tech or a patient advocate.

The environment therefore conditions nurses to be on the defense and act in a manner which makes many people perceive them as rough and tough people.

Nurses often complain that they don’t understand why experienced nurses are mean to new nurses. The common complaint is along these lines: “don’t they know what it was like to be a nurse”?

Well, the truth is that nurses don’t seem to care. Ask any nurse recruiter and you’ll hear horror stories about nurses who start a contract only to be screamed at by other nurses their first day on the job. Sometimes there is even more severe harassment which causes human resources to get involved in the situation.

The problem of nurses being rude and mean extends so far and wide in the nursing profession that there is even a term for it: "Nurses Eat Their Young". It comes up in every nursing school - from in person nusring schools to nursing schools that are only online. Nurses realize quickly that experienced nurses will cause trouble for the younger nurses. The problem of nurses being rude to new nurses is so extensive and problematic that there are even peer reviewed studies about it.

Are All Nurses Mean?

Not all nurses are mean. But the problem lies in that there are enough mean nurses to cause a problem for the normal nurses.

If you have one or two mean nurses on the floor of a hospital, they will poison the entire environment. The nurses who go to work and want to act professionally won’t be able to. What happens is that the mean nurse goes unchecked and therefore the other nurses decide that it’s not worth their effort to try and behave like a professional nurse.

It’s a chain reaction in the worse sense of the word. People go to work wanting to act kindly towards co-workers and patients, but then they encounter rude nurses who behave towards them in a rude and nasty manner.

Sometimes the rude nurses have been conditioned by years of abuse from patients, other healthcare workers, and their own harsh memories of being verbally abused during their time working as a new nurse.

It’s a bit of a vicious cycle and unfortunately it is unlikely to be broken. The nursing profession allows for such a wide background of people to work in it that there’s no uniform code of conduct that nurses understand that they should be a part of good work environment.

Also, and this is an alarming trend, there is a culture of hazing and harassment in the nursing field. The type of person who goes into nursing is now attracted more for the incredibly high pay and flexibility of schedule. Nurses on TikTok do dance routines in hallways, flaunt paychecks in the 10’s of thousands of dollars for a weeks work, and post rude photos of their patients.

Major magazines are beginning to cover the culture of bullying in nursing and how it prevents professionally behaved nurses from successfully working in the environment. In turn, the normal nurses who do not want to tolerate this sort of abuse from coworkers tend to leave the nursing field.

If Nurses Are Mean, Why Be a Nurse?

Good question, and it has to do with the ease of finding work and the great pay.

Now, compated to CEOs and executivses nurses don't make much, they will tell you. But there is no other career for someone without exceptioanl skill to make enormous money. In states like Calirofnia and New York the average starting pay for a nurse is 100k a year.

Think about that. A nurse who graduates from a nursing school (many of which are online and essentially diploma mills) can find work making more than a lawyer, resident doctor, not to mention that salary is significantyly more than any white color employee could hope for when looking for an entry level job out of college.

Besides the salary that nurses make, they also only have to work 3 shifts per week. This allows them to work side hustles and make large money in a number of ways.

Finally, the biggest reason to go ahead and be a nurse is that you never have to spend time interviewing and searching for a job. Recrutiers will constantly reach out to you and hospitals are always hiring nurses. There is never a shortage in the job market.

Nurses don't need to have cover letters or even spend much time on a resume. In fact, it's not uncommon for a nurse to use the same boilerplate resume for years and have only the contact info on it.