How does the expression “nurses eat their young” make you feel?

I say this to the new nurse, not as a threat, but as a warning. The meaning of this comes from the animal kingdom, where a mother will eat its young for being weak rather than protecting and nurturing them.
In my experience as a nurse, I have found two types of nurses: trainers and non-trainers. The trainers take their time with new graduate nurses or new nurses to the unit. The trainer will explain their process, including the trainee in everything, calmly answer questions and introduce them to others.
Non-trainer will say nothing to the trainee while the trainee spends their time chasing after learning nothing over their shift. The non-trainer will then do nothing to intervene if the trainee is lost.
I feel as though it is an unspoken rite of passage that every nurse must be abused, and if you survive, you're REALLY a nurse.
I despise this practice. Every veteran nurse's job is to encourage and support newcomers, whether they have just graduated or are new to the facility. Being a nurse is hard enough. Trusting our instinct and skills, dealing with the loss of patients, abuse from patients and/or families, working with limited resources, advocating for our patients, and much more. We need to encourage one another in every way.
The administration should recognize those nurses who enjoy educating others and encourage those nurses through ongoing leadership training and financial incentives. While also trusting the trainer to give the administration an objective opinion on whether a newcomer needs follow-up education.
I love training new nurses for my organization. I want them to know that I will be here to help them, and I want my patients'/families to feel confident that they are in capable hands when I'm not present.

It is horrible and isolating and makes you want to quit nursing because you feel inadequate. It needs to end.

I don't believe this is applicable to all areas of nursing practice. I have not experienced it. I work at a facility that is used as clinical practice base for nursing students. As far as my own experience is concerned, I have received a lot of support through the years. I have been a nurse for over 30 years now.

Like I'm watching national geographic taking place in a hospital.

I would say you have to expect working to be much harder than nursing school. It is not that all new nurses are singled out, but it is a steep learning curve, and the staff seldom has the time to take the time needed to fully train someone new, out of school or just coming in from another area. I am hoping that the places that have apprentice programs now, the new nurses have a better time getting up to speed. I know in my area; most new nurses have to start out at SNF level; there were never enough jobs for new grads at the hospitals because of the training time needed. There is not enough staff to do the work and work with the new grad. I am not sure how they can get all the experience needed to go on to other areas of nursing or get into jobs at the hospitals.
I am amazed how many recruiters contact me for Med/Surg positions when it is clear on my resume that yes, I have over a decade of hospital and SNF experience, but it was 3 decades ago! I have been instructing, educating, and supporting medical providers, patients, and caregivers/families how to navigate the healthcare system and to understand managed care to get the care that is needed.

I have experienced it several times in my nursing career. It's similar to a rite of passage. You have to show them (seniors) your value to the team in terms of your work ethics, be respectful and recognize their seniority but to a certain degree that you should not allow yourself to be disrespected, be firm but courteous. They will eventually realize your worth to them and to the team. Help as much as you can. Learn from the seniors as much as you can (they are a wealth of knowledge - the positive things and good work habits).

Personally, I don't subscribe to being this type of senior nurse - I believe that if I train the young, they will be a great addition to the team, and if you show teamwork, they will at some point help you in the workplace. Goodness begets goodness and hopefully spreads to the team. It's how you build culture
.

I spent many years as a manager in ER's and ICU's the phase is (was ?) too accurate. The new people don't "know, do, think, act, care, get trained, & etc" like we do. The best way to fix them is to criticize and belittle them, was the action I always watched.

It was only during times of short staffing I was able to finally get through to my ICU staff if they were sick of training nurses for other hospital ICU's - those hospitals LOVED our high quality well trained ICU nurse for their hospital - IF YOU ARE SICK of TRAINING TOURISTS "TREAT THEM WELL." Did I have about 6 months of old staff being less critical and welcoming and inviting new staff to learn.

I moved off to another position in the hospital the new manager was of the old school and very quickly trashed what took me 10 years to accomplish. Everyone but the old staff was gone in a few months.

Hard Truth!

It's true. Simple.

Tasty...savory...and steeped in the male-dominated hedonistic tendency that perpetuates women (who are the strongest in the animal kingdom, we are life!) to live up to a falsehood that there is a finite of resources, and the weak ones must go like Simba thrown off pride rock. I am grateful for it, now 15 years in, because we often as young (mostly) women, are unequipped fresh from school to operate from the womb in the cutthroat world of healthcare. Since the beginning of time, we women have had it rough navigating within care and emotions, without being taken advantage of. NETY It's just a foreboding of what is coming for the bright-eyed bushy-tailed Bambi in us all. We remember what happened to Bambi.... No different from the military, and other male-led institutions of power, where initiations are a must, to crush egos and souls, to operate as a unit. Take it however you want to....

I'm not sure what that means as it relates to nurses-maybe it means that nurses are tough? I've never heard this term applied to nurses before.