Bullying while working as NP

Specialties NP

Published

  1. Have u experienced bullying as an NP?

    • 12
      yes
    • 21
      no

33 members have participated

Have u experienced bullying while working as an NP? Do you feel more respected from staff when u became an NP?

I have heard many bullying and less respect among staff RN's . How about in Nurse practitioners?

Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.
..I have witness one nasty hospitalist ask the referring provider if they were an MD and when he was told the provider was a PA he was a bit nasty and condescending, but the PA was on point and very impressive with her assessment and workup....so the MD backed down and retracted his claws in the end.

I wonder if my idea of bullying is different than others. If working with nasty people who aren't always nice to me immediately is bullying then maybe I have been bullied and am too dense to realize it? :uhoh3:

In the case above it sounds like the hospitalist's comment was totally uncalled for however he recovered his composure when the PA delivered. Although its unfortunate he started it like that I love the ending and have had a couple similar experiences with hospitalists until we developed a working relationship. I just ignored it and figured they were having a bad day or were just an ass. Either way unfortunate but I rolled with it.

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I have never experienced bullying from Doctors/PAs/APRNs. The bullying that I have experienced were from Staff RNs & ancillary staff that were co-workers.

The first time was when I first heard I got into NP school (I was 25 or 26 back then), everyone at the workplace was very excited for me except one nurse who just got her MSN in Education who is also a staff RN, she was older and more experienced than I. She said "all these young nurses, wanting to become an NP don't really care about patients and just want to make money!" she said that in front of everyone. Mind you, I started working as a RN at 22 years of age so when I had started NP school I had already 3 years of experience and continued to go to school part time and go to work part time.

The 2nd time I was bullied was when I became a float nurse to a Trauma Center (same hospital I was at) at the Surgical ICU (there's always a tension between ER and ICU nurses.. I was an ER nurse), they knew I was in school for NP. I was orientating in the SICU unit and during the break I could hear them snickering in the break room saying "she doesn't really know what she's doing? she's an ER nurse, she can't handle a SICU patient" --- and this comment was coming from the seasoned staff nurse who was training me in the SICU.

The 3rd time I was bullied at the work place was when this medical assistant thought she was my boss and if I asked for a paper prescription pad she would always ask me with an attitude what I needed it for before giving it to me (It was extremely petty!). I reported this to the owner (who is also a medical provider) and somehow he sided with her (and I was the least person to prescribe any kind of narcotics/scheduled drugs in that clinic). Needless to say, I left that very first NP job that I had. I would have stayed if he just explained to her that she has no control over how I practice medicine (didn't know if there was anything going on between them; it sure looked like it though). I figured that I am a revenue maker and I drive 1hr 40 mins one way from home to clinic and vice versa, and if he can't ask her to respect the way I practice medicine, then this clinic is not worth staying. Other than that I really loved the practice and the patients.

The 4th time I was bullied, I was at a Locum Tenens job, I was floating between FP/IM/Peds area and I was mostly in Peds but the Charge nurse in Peds kept on giving me assignments and tasks that were descriptions of RNs and Medical assistants not NPs... I went along with it for the couple of days and then asked her nicely to stop giving me assignments that were non- provider descriptions; then she told me " So now things have changed, your going to quit in 30 days?" After that, I called my company at the time and they called the Chief of Primary care and she had me changed areas where I can see patients. Then to find out, that I wasn't the only one being bullied by the Peds Charge nurse, she was bullying other charge nurses from other areas and other staff nurses as well. So I wrote a formal complaint and they demoted her from her job.

I think that there will always be bullies in the workplace; I always think how to handle them before acting. I would not want to be perceived as petty, therefore, I first re-educate most of them in a professional manner, that although I have a RN license, I am hired for a Nurse Practitioner job description which requires me to physically assess the patient, formulating diagnoses/interventions/plans. I have no problems with pulling out my signed job description and showing it to them. Worse case scenario, I just call the company I work for and they will handle everything from there and if they want to keep me working there they will handle it right. Otherwise, they know I'm out of there. So far, all my locum assignments have worked out for me.

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Perhaps the definition of bullying has changed. Every time someone says something about you that is not a compliment does not make them a bully. A jerk maybe but not a bully. A supervisor who gives you the hardest assignment every shift, swiping your report sheet and throwing it away, letting the air out of the vacutainers in your tray, putting things on your chair that will stain your scrubs, "forgetting" to tell you about admits/discharges in your section, flattening your tires, not putting the doc through when he calls you back etc...I consider those things bullying. Not being a fan of yours doesn't really qualify.

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I wonder if my idea of bullying is different than others. If working with nasty people who aren't always nice to me immediately is bullying then maybe I have been bullied and am too dense to realize it? :uhoh3:

i agree that every person may have a different definition of bullying. Nevertheless whatever the definition may be, kindness is a universal language.

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Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.
Perhaps the definition of bullying has changed. Every time someone says something about you that is not a compliment does not make them a bully. A jerk maybe but not a bully. A supervisor who gives you the hardest assignment every shift, swiping your report sheet and throwing it away, letting the air out of the vacutainers in your tray, putting things on your chair that will stain your scrubs, "forgetting" to tell you about admits/discharges in your section, flattening your tires, not putting the doc through when he calls you back etc...I consider those things bullying. Not being a fan of yours doesn't really qualify.

Although this sounds extreme I also think that bullying requires repeated incidents that are targeted at one person not just someone being rude.

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Specializes in Tele, Cardiac Post Op, ER.

flattening your tires? what the heck!?

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flattening your tires? what the heck!?

Inner city Philadelphia. I grew a lot as a nurse and person.

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Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.
Inner city Philadelphia. I grew a lot as a nurse and person.

Lol that didn't even make me blink, I'm from DC. :D

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Specializes in Tele, Cardiac Post Op, ER.

thats ridiculous. HR on the telly pronto

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flattening your tires? what the heck!?

Car keyed in parking lot. It happens more than you would think

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