Bullying in the work place

[haney13]

How far is too far? I was bullied in the work place and now at this time have left and gone on to a new position in the hospital, but she is still bullying the staff. They are afraid to turn her in because of how and what she does, I feel I need to turn her in, to help the staff out. She makes it a hostel environment and very toxic for staff and patients and the patients family members. And in the last 6 months that unit has gone through 32 nurses old and new. I feel I need to be their voice and speak up for them because I no longer work for her and I'm not afraid of her. Please help what should I do?

[Irish_Mist, BSN, RN]

It's not your problem. Let them deal with it. Assuming all of these people are adults, they can handle it themselves. Don't let this be the hill you die on.

[OCNRN63, RN]

I would step away after I encourage others to contact the compliance hotline/or ethics hotline. We have one through Human Resources. It's ran by a third party and it can be anonymous as when you put the complaint in there is no name required.

However, if the complaints are not documented such as days, times, what was exactly said and the circumstance then nothing can be done. It's hard when the "bully" does it in a covert way. Such as one of our doctors. It's not what he says, but how he says it. His tone, how he stands and looks at you.

I called a rapid response on one of his patients and he asked me if I thought that the patient should be transferred, then he transferred them, stating "this nurse doesn't think she can take care of my patient properly." Which was true, on our floor, but not in the way he said it. Then I told him that I just got back from bereavement leave from the death of my dad and his tone was not needed. He said "well if you are feeling too sensitive maybe you came back too soon."

I finally had enough of his crap and started documenting as did other nurses. He is finally a little nicer now.

But I still work there, you don't. So there isn't really anything you can do even if you wanted to, other than give your old co-workers advice.

The only thing you could even do is call said manager and tell her how you feel, but let me caution you, the world is a small place! These people seem to pop up in different positions during your career. My old manager who was a "good riddance" manager popped back up as a manager on another unit in a hospital I started working for.

That reminds me of a situation I had with a doctor who was nasty with nurses, verbally abusive, etc. I finally got sick of it and wrote him up, used direct quotes. Someone in admin. must have talked to him about it, because he came up to me a few weeks later and said "You didn't need to write me up...If you had a problem you should have come and talked to me, wah, wah, wah." Yeah, right. Like I was going to go seek him out for a heart to heart after he'd just ripped me apart.

[chare]

If 32 nurses have left in the past 6 months, HR and/or hospital administration are aware. If this isn't being looked into now, you reporting it likely isn't going to make any differance.

As others have said, walk away and don't look back.

Best wishes to you on your new unit.