My post yesterday concentrated on the petty attack by one blogger (doctor) against the grammar and punctuation of another (nurse) when the real fight was going on over on the other side of the Atlantic. Reading Kim’s post yesterday I just caught a small part of the argument and since then there has been a full blown nurse v nurse fight. Now even though I’ve read some of the stuff surrounding that whole thing, I neither can nor will enter any part of the disagreement except to say that I don’t think Kim or anyone deserves to be personally attacked for something she writes on her own blog.

It has been my sad experience throughout my career to find that whereas doctors tend to close ranks and look after each other during times of trouble, nurses act in completely the opposite way. Ever since the nursing officer on duty the day my grandad died made me work my days off in return for a day off to go home to be with my grieving relatives and another for the funeral (I was 19 at the time) I have had insight into the way nurses treat each other. People get sick and colleagues just complain about the extra work, people take time off to look after their children and they are accused of being skivers at the expense of those without children. mistakes happen and people queue up to report each other and line up the firing squad.

There is no excuse for poor practice, and people should not cover up for each other but there are times when people could offer more support to each other. When they could perhaps think before they speak (or fire off some of those more unpleasant comments). I am not suggesting that life at work (or in the blogging world) should be like some kind of Walt Disney cartoon (after all even Bambi’s mum died a nasty death) but sometimes I do wonder why we appear to have it in for each other.

Why Bambi? Well the April showers song is currently on an advert for nokia and it is in my head!