Through the majority of nursing school, I have been afraid of you. While I have encountered some incredible nurses in my clinicals, I have also experienced the few like you. The ones that just stare from the nurse's station not saying a word when I walk out of a patient's room looking confused and lost or something. The ones that snap when you ask a question that may seem silly or the ones that ask you what you're doing sitting in their chair at the station. These nurses scare me: The nurses that eat their young.

For a long time, it has been witnessed in multiple units and hospitals that nurses are a working class that are very hard on their new, younger coworkers. What is even more sad about that is that I have had instructors warn me about how bad the, abuse may be too hard of a word, but mistreatment of new graduate nurses. Honestly, I am scared.

It is hard enough as a new nurse to go from a classroom setting straight into the hospital. You are put into situations you never thought you would be in right out of school. Thankfully, yes, every entry position does have an orientation period, some longer than others, but you are still in those tough decisions that can make or break you client's care. A recent study in Policy, Politics & Nursing Practice found that an estimated 17.5 percent of newly-licensed RNs leave their first nursing job within the first year and one in three leave within two years.

So why are you so aggressive? Are you afraid I am here to take your job? What do you get out of picking on someone that has never encountered these experiences before? You were new too once, were you not? You didn't come into this career knowing everything?

In no way am I asking you to hold my hand when I go into do an intervention. I am simply asking that you answer my questions without rolling your eyes, or stare at me and giggle when you see me searching the supply closet for something. Lend a hand every once in awhile. Give me a pointer or two. Tell me what has helped you in your career.

I firmly believe that we can all learn something from each other. I definitely do not want to be a part of the nearly 18 percent of nurses quitting their first job. I want to be a nurse that helps not only my patients but my coworkers as well. Not to make me feel good, but to change the view that nurses eat their young.

At the end of the day, it pays to be nice to people. Even when they have 30 fewer years of experience than you. We all can keep learning, and we all have the choice to be kind.

So please, experienced nurses, don't eat me when you see me walk on to your unit. Instead, feed me with the knowledge you have gathered so I may become a great nurse like you someday.