Dealing

In hospitals there are certain things that you simply learn to deal with. Death and Illness are the obvious. The more annoying are the co-workers who get away with doing zero work. The medical team that NEVER respond to their bleepers, even when you fast bleep them. The SHO who sticks a giant needle into a patient with an insanely high INR and then blames his subordinates when the patient bleeds everywhere.

Honestly the deterioration and death that are commonplace in hospitals are actually much easier to deal with than the politics you find on the wards. I know every workplace has its fair share of politics, however of all the places I have worked I have never come across it in such high doses as I have in hospitals.

Even as a student nurse your superiors dont give you any support in learning to deal with these issues. You sink or swim, with luck you'll have your own support structures in place, partners, friends, other student nurses. I honestly dont know how I'd have survived my first year as a student nurse had it not been for these people. I cant help but wonder, of the three hundred people still on my course, there must be some who have no support structures in place, what effect is all this having on them?