Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Eating Our Young

Tony Bennett has issues with Simon Cowell of American Idol fame. He thinks Simon should be taking some of those profits and opening tiny clubs across the country so the kids can break in and learn properly. Tony was from the generation that had GI funding to get a solid musical foundation and he's been using his interviews for quite a while now to express concern that this generation isn't getting the same developmental opportunities.
In the nursing blogs, there's a lot of discussion on lateral violence (older nurses being hard on young nurses entering the profession). Well as most of my readers are mega years post graduation, what's your feelings about those entering your field.
Here's the conclusion reached by http://head-nurse.blogspot.com in her post "Smack, munch,
mmm new nurses" "We as nurses do need to shut the hell up and stop putting new nurses through a gauntlet. Nobody's going to be tougher, or faster, or smarter for being abused. There are, however, *systemic problems* that I think are a larger threat to the profession as a whole. We need to spend the breath we'd use debating how, exactly, we eat our young, fixing those." Head-nurse has some pretty good advice in her blogs to help young nurses survive. There's a lot of wisdom in her first rule: "1. The first rule of nursing is (sing it, everybody!): "If You Have To Jack With It, It's Wrong." Remember that when you have to connect tab A to slot B through connector C and widget D." If what you're doing isn't working, well look again. You've probably got it wrong. If it's that hard, there is a better approach.

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