Is there really a huge amount of horizontal violence(bullying) in the profession

Nursing Students General Students

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  1. Are you happy in nursing school

    • 14
      Yes
    • 5
      No

19 members have participated

I'm curious to know if you guys in nursing school really feel like this profession has bullying.

Do you find it hard to work with your classmates? Do you like your teachers or do they scare the life out of you. One of my biggest fears is being bullied and it is what holding me back from pursuing this profession.

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I haven't felt any type of violence/bullying whatsoever in nursing school.

If instructors are exercising their right to be strict, they can, and I've never seen that as bullying/violence.

Just be thoughtful and respectful and you should receive the same treatment in return.

Good luck to you :)

Sent via my iPhone using allnurses.com ❤️

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Specializes in L&D, infusion, urology.

I haven't seen any bullying in my program, but I'm also not in a super Darwinian program, where there's a thinning of the herd. Like any group of people, some people get along better than others, and there's sort of a division of the older students and the younger students, but I think that's natural. The instructors are definitely working for the betterment of their students, and it shows. When they ride you hard, it's because they want you to learn. It's not because they're picking on you.

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"nurses eat their young" and it seems from what I have experienced... men get the brunt of it. As a male nurse in his 30's with ADHD... I have faced lots of hostility (99% behind my back). I was targeted by 2 professors in particular in nursing school... but that made me a stronger nurse... we had dinner only 90 mins into shift that semester... and I had 3-4 very sick GI and Onco patients and would get asked what are new med orders for today, whats H&H, whats d/c plan at dinner... and "vital signs are vital" so I worked out in my head... to get vitals and check in with sickest patient first (not always the squeaky wheel) and found 2 acute situations at shift change... one was in fluid overload from afternoon chemo.. another stoic patient tried to ambulate self to bathroom and was on the floor..

When you get into real world of nursing... if I had to do it over again.. is to be quiet... and observe... and don't say anything if a peer misses something... fix it if you can.. and move on... sometimes people are resentful even if you bring it up to them personally and confidentially.. but getting critical assessments like SAD, AUDIT, BROSET, BRADEN, is for patient safety and so that CMS doesn't cut your facilities money... its in all your interest to get it done.

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Specializes in Hospitalist Medicine.

I don't think the poll question "are you happy with nursing school?" reflects the title regarding bullying. 2 completely different topics to me!

As a student, I really love my program and I've made wonderful friends. I'm happy with nursing school. However, there is definitely bullying going on behind the instructors' backs. I have witnessed it first hand and it makes me sad to think that people need to act like they're mean girls in junior high. People spoke up about it and our program address it immediately. Do I think it will make it go away? No. But at least those who were the culprits have backed off because they're afraid of further repercussions. Personally, I think if someone is caught bullying, they should be ejected from the program.

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Specializes in ER, ICU, Education.

Keep in mind that what you see on the boards is only one facet. People are less likely to come to a website and post to report that everything is going well and that they love their classes and professors. Instead, you are more likely to hear requests for assistance from those who are not happy. Some of the complaints are reasonable (ex-true bullying) and others reflect a lack of maturity as a student (ex-my instructor is sooooo mean! There is information on the test that wasn't covered in class!)

Finally, I fully believe in Benner's novice to expert theory. During my first year of practice, many things stressed me that don't now. I felt that every new admit was a source of pressure, pages of orders made me anxious, and I was insecure, so any suggestions were hard to take. By 6 months, I felt better, and by a year, I was my usual self. When you receive feedback, it's easy to have a knee-jerk defensive reaction. I just thank people for the feedback and consider it later. Is the feedback well-intended from someone helpful? Is it something I can use to improve? Have I heard this feedback before? There is a big difference between "Let's work on your sterile technique. That's not quite right" and "I can't believe you violated sterile technique again! So stupid!" Ignore the nasty, and apply what you can. Stick up for yourself.

My point is that, while there are genuine jerks who are nurses, physicians, and family members, there are jerks who are grocery baggers, fast food workers, accountants, and engineers. There are jerks in every walk of life. You would be well-served to learn to communicate assertively to manage bullies than to lose an opportunity you want to avoid them. If someone is nasty to me, I give them a boundary. Ex- " I don't allow others to call me names or yell at me. When you are ready to discuss this professionally, I will be at the nurses' station." Then I walk away.

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Specializes in public health, women's health, reproductive health.

I haven't experienced any bullying in nursing school. As concerns undesirable experiences (because I have had very good experiences, too), I have encountered disorganization, incompetence and some blatantly unprofessional conduct. But as far as feeling bullied or picked on? Not at all. My classmates are helpful to one another and generally more positive about things than I naturally tend to be. There is a "let's lift each other up" mentality that is very nice. However, whether I am "happy in nursing school" is a very general question, the answer to which is based on criteria beyond the scope of this thread. :-)

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I'm just a J1 and haven't seen or heard of any type of bullying at our school. From the very first moment at orientation the faculty encouraged us to get to know each other and help each other. They reminded us that we will be with each other for the next 4 semesters and we will need each other. Our school also has the bragging rights of 90% students complete nursing school and a high NCLEX pass rate. The faculty wants to know our names and wants us to feel comfortable talking with them. They seem posed to help us before we even know we need help. With that kind of attitude, the students seem to follow suit. Our clinical group works really well together and makes sure everyone is prepared and learning.

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Yes, I was bullied severely in nursing school. I was too afraid to speak out against it because I feared for my safety. One was by a guy who hated that I was in the program, and he would try to push me out the way every day after class.

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I haven't seen any bullying in my program, or at least not in my cohort. There was one clinical instructor last quarter whose behavior bordered on bullying towards the students in her cohort, which fortunately did not include me, but all of the students are pretty awesome (there are 27 of us) and the instructors are strict and tough, but very nice.

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Specializes in Hospice + Palliative.

I have no experienced or witnessed any bullying (either among my cohort or lateral violence among the staff at any of the clinical facilities I've been in). Instructors are strict when necessary, and have high expectations both for our classroom/clinical performance, and for our professionalism in both arenas. Sometimes when I read threads here about the awful behavior directed at students, I am amazed and thankful that I haven't had any experiences like that. At one clinical site, we did have some negative experiences with one nurse; but I think she was just a generally unhappy person who took out her anger and unhappiness with life on anyone who was unlucky enough to cross her path, and there's folks like that in every workplace. It has nothing to do with her being a nurse, I think she was jsut a miserable person period.

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Yes, I'm happy in nursing school. Yes, there is bullying at the clinical sites. Between nurses, between nurses and instructors, between nurses (& other staff) and students.

Having to remember that we "are guests in their facility" a lot of it we just swallow. But I had an RT comment that the students were "not very smart" and I called her on the rudeness in a joking way that got the point across that her comment was impolite but didn't attack back. We need to stand up for ourselves, but in a professional way.

There is some bullying in class between students, but again, I find if I call someone on the behavior without stooping to their level, they will get the picture that I'm not going to tolerate that behavior. As Dr. Phil said, you teach people how to treat you.

I've found the instructors are good at my school and those who get singled out for individual attention get that treatment for good reason

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