Unspoken Rules of Nursing Culture That Can Hurt Your Career

When Shelli was a new scrub nurse with only six months experience, she failed to anticipate that the surgeon would need a particular scalpel. Immediately, her preceptor deftly slapped the correct blade into the impatient surgeon’s outstretched hand with a glare in Shelli’s direction. The surgeon said nothing, but a look of disappointment briefly flashed across his face. At that moment, Shelli learned that if she was not on top of the surgeon’s needs, she would end up feeling embarrassed and looking incompetent. Shelli did not find the r​ules of the nursing culture in her orientation manual.

We learn these unspoken rules of the nursing culture very quickly in order to survive. We know which physician not to ever call in the middle of the night, which nurse talks about us behind our back when we ask a question, and whether we should even bother to write up an incident report or approach a coworker with a concern we have about ‘their' patient. This knowledge is vital to our survival because it determines whether or not we will be accepted by the group.

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When Shelli was a new scrub nurse with only six months experience, she failed to anticipate that the surgeon would need a particular scalpel. Immediately, her preceptor deftly slapped the correct blade into the impatient surgeon’s outstretched hand with a glare in Shelli’s direction. The surgeon said nothing, but a look of disappointment briefly flashed across his face. At that moment, Shelli learned that if she was not on top of the surgeon’s needs, she would end up feeling embarrassed and looking incompetent. Shelli did not find the r​ules of the nursing culture in her orientation manual. 

We learn these unspoken rules of the nursing culture very quickly in order to survive. We know which physician not to ever call in the middle of the night, which nurse talks about us behind our back when we ask a question, and whether we should even bother to write up an incident report or approach a coworker with a concern we have about ‘their' patient. This knowledge is vital to our survival because it determines whether or not we will be accepted by the group. 

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