Bullying in the workplace

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foggnm

219 Posts

There's a whole area of study on lateral violence in the field of nursing. I will tell you my own perspective as a murse (male nurse). Nursing is a high-responsibility, low autonomy/low-decision-making field and especially in the hospital environment work is often handed-off between departments/units/people/shifts/etc. This in itself often makes nurses feel overwhelmed or dumped on when things are really busy. These are most often the times when people get upset because either they are receiving more work, or someone else is giving them a hard-time about passing on the work. This can be as simple as a receiving nurse being 'difficult' in report, asking a lot of stupid questions, delaying patient transfer, asking for the nurse to do more with the patient before the hand off, etc. In my experience hand-offs/transfers are the area with the most potential for lateral violence or bullying. I can even admit to being difficult myself at times when I was stressed and needed to move a patient but was getting the run-around. It has frustrated me and made me say a few harsh things and later I realized my stress was in control.

The second thing I see and this may sound sexist, is that women often are not very kind to each other. I have never been 'written up' for anything and part of that I think is because I'm a guy. But I see female nurses write up other female nurses all the time. Or they will talk bad about them etc. I have also seen female managers be much more harsh on female employees over really stupid little issues. Perhaps part of it is that guys tend to be fairly direct and openly communicate about mistakes/issues rather than making it personal. These are generalizations, of course and there are good and bad nurses of both genders.

All bullying/lateral violence aside, I think perhaps one of the biggest challenges in nursing is that there is so much emotion to deal with in the profession. Having worked ER, ICU, surgery, etc in the past 7 years, I am almost always dealing with patients or family members that are highly emotional. It is rare that I have a day where someone isn't crying, anxious, violent, upset, in pain, etc. Then you work with that all day and if you have co-workers that are dramatic or emotional, it really can drain you.

Personally, I'm working on leaving the profession just because of these reasons. There is just too much emotion in the profession. And I find that while I enjoy making people feel better and getting them through difficult situations, it is tough to not absorb some of that negative energy.

The words bully/bullying are so overused that I don't even know what they mean anymore.

Specializes in Geriatrics, Home Health.

Lots of people have trouble believing in the existence of something they haven't personally experienced. Bullying in nursing definitely exists, no matter how much people try to deny it. Pubmed even has studies about it.

heron, ASN, RN

4,137 Posts

Specializes in Hospice.
The words bully/bullying are so overused that I don't even know what they mean anymore.

Indeed! And this, OP, is why you're getting so many sarcastic responses. I've followed many of the threads on this subject and have often seen irrelevant minutiae like facial expressions, failure to greet and not socializing outside work with the "victim" all referred to as "bullying".

If you would define your terms, you might get more acceptable responses. As it stands, your question comes across more as troll bait than as an honest quest for informed opinions.

Nurse Leigh

1,149 Posts

Specializes in Telemetry.
Indeed! And this, OP, is why you're getting so many sarcastic responses. I've followed many of the threads on this subject and have often seen irrelevant minutiae like facial expressions, failure to greet and not socializing outside work with the "victim" all referred to as "bullying".

If you would define your terms, you might get more acceptable responses. As it stands, your question comes across more as troll bait than as an honest quest for informed opinions.

Yep. As I mentioned in a different thread on this subject, I think that those of us who experienced bullying as children/adolescents have a different threshold to consider a behavior as bullying.

In school, I was pushed down the stairs, had my wrist grabbed and sprained, other students spat on my food, and made fun of me often. So as an adult, I tend to roll my eyes when someone says they were bullied because another nurse was brusque with them or didn't want to chit chat.

Tenebrae, BSN, RN

1,951 Posts

Specializes in Mental Health, Gerontology, Palliative.

I had one experience with a bully nurse when I was a student. Mind you when she inferred that she didn't think i had what it took to be a registered nurse, I had to bite my tounge hard to refrain from saying "well, if that means I have to be a mean hearted nasty ***** like you, then you are quite right, I don't have what it takes to be an RN".

And this nurse was a cow to everyone she didnt like which also included her colleagues not just student nurses so it made me feel slightly less picked on.

Since graduation, I've encountered a couple of managers who IMO could be defined as clinically insane/psychopathic, however they weren't nurses, my colleagues have been brilliant.

Ruby Vee, BSN

17 Articles; 14,030 Posts

Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
There's a whole area of study on lateral violence in the field of nursing. I will tell you my own perspective as a murse (male nurse). Nursing is a high-responsibility, low autonomy/low-decision-making field and especially in the hospital environment work is often handed-off between departments/units/people/shifts/etc. This in itself often makes nurses feel overwhelmed or dumped on when things are really busy. These are most often the times when people get upset because either they are receiving more work, or someone else is giving them a hard-time about passing on the work. This can be as simple as a receiving nurse being 'difficult' in report, asking a lot of stupid questions, delaying patient transfer, asking for the nurse to do more with the patient before the hand off, etc. In my experience hand-offs/transfers are the area with the most potential for lateral violence or bullying. I can even admit to being difficult myself at times when I was stressed and needed to move a patient but was getting the run-around. It has frustrated me and made me say a few harsh things and later I realized my stress was in control.

The second thing I see and this may sound sexist, is that women often are not very kind to each other. I have never been 'written up' for anything and part of that I think is because I'm a guy. But I see female nurses write up other female nurses all the time. Or they will talk bad about them etc. I have also seen female managers be much more harsh on female employees over really stupid little issues. Perhaps part of it is that guys tend to be fairly direct and openly communicate about mistakes/issues rather than making it personal. These are generalizations, of course and there are good and bad nurses of both genders.

All bullying/lateral violence aside, I think perhaps one of the biggest challenges in nursing is that there is so much emotion to deal with in the profession. Having worked ER, ICU, surgery, etc in the past 7 years, I am almost always dealing with patients or family members that are highly emotional. It is rare that I have a day where someone isn't crying, anxious, violent, upset, in pain, etc. Then you work with that all day and if you have co-workers that are dramatic or emotional, it really can drain you.

Personally, I'm working on leaving the profession just because of these reasons. There is just too much emotion in the profession. And I find that while I enjoy making people feel better and getting them through difficult situations, it is tough to not absorb some of that negative energy.

You're right. You do sound sexist.

Ruby Vee, BSN

17 Articles; 14,030 Posts

Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
Lots of people have trouble believing in the existence of something they haven't personally experienced. Bullying in nursing definitely exists, no matter how much people try to deny it. Pubmed even has studies about it.

I believe that there are bullies out there. I've encountered TWO of them in the past forty years. I know they're out there. I just don't think they're out there in huge numbers, waiting to take a bite out of every new grad who crosses their paths.

On the other hand, blaming all those bullies for your problems in nursing seems to come a whole lot easier to some folks than instrospection, self examination, and realizing at some point that perhaps YOU are part of the problem.

Ruby Vee, BSN

17 Articles; 14,030 Posts

Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
WK, I don't have any particular problems with Ashleys, don't think I've ever worked with any, but Lindas and some Jennifers just do not like me for some reason. Maybe because Seven is a very odd name, however their dislike for me has never risen to the level of bullying. As for the term lateral violence, I've never even heard of that except here on AN.

Clearly you are not reading the right nursing literature (nor am I) because Pub Med has STUDIES on the subject.

Trauma Columnist

traumaRUs, MSN, APRN

88 Articles; 21,249 Posts

Specializes in Nephrology, Cardiology, ER, ICU.

STAFF NOTE - please keep on topic.

I've been a nurse for 24 years and was in the military prior to that. I've not experienced bullying. If bullying is disagreeing with me or saying something critical to me, than I guess yes, I've been "bullied." However, I've found, for me at least, that to take offense at every little comment in life would make me a sad, cranky person so I choose to ignore stuff.

Ya gotta choose the hill you want to die on and this ain't the one.

Jedrnurse, BSN, RN

2,776 Posts

Specializes in school nurse.
why are some of you being so rude

If you consider the previous comments rude, I think you've set the bar really low. You may also find "bullying" very common, when it may only be people having differences of opinion or being assertive...

roser13, ASN, RN

6,504 Posts

Specializes in Med/Surg, Ortho, ASC.
If you consider the previous comments rude, I think you've set the bar really low. You may also find "bullying" very common, when it may only be people having differences of opinion or being assertive...

Bingo! I believe you hit the proverbial nail on the head:yes:

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