Published
A doctor-bully epidemic is jeopardizing both nurses and patients. In news reports and hospital break rooms, stories abound of physicians berating nurses, hurling profanities, or even physically threatening or assaulting them. Doctors are shoving ...
Read Article in its entirety:
Doctors bully nurses: Hospital mistreatment is a danger to patient health.
Doctors have name tags with their title and last name while nurses have only their first name, inviting an unprofessional intimacy. Physicians wear lab coats where nurses often are garbed in cartoon studded scrubs. Physicians have their own dining, parking and lounge areas while nurses are forbidden from drinking coffee at their workstations. Nurses routinely refer to physicians using their title, nurses are called by their first name if they are even mentioned by name.
In the facilities in which I've worked in the last decade or so, both physician and nurse name tags have had first and last names on them -- the many of the nurses make a point of covering up their last names on the tag. And nobody is making nurses wear "cartoon studded scrubs," that is their choice; in fact, lots of employers enforce dress codes to try to stop people from wearing unprofessional clothing (like "cartoon studded scrubs") at work, and lots of nurses complain about that. Ditto for what people get called; in my experience, many nurses have some irrational fear of people finding out their last names. I would be delighted to be addressed by my last name at work, but the other nurses have loused that up for me -- I know better than to request that I be addressed as "Ms. elkpark" or "Nurse elkpark" when every other nurse in the place is "Susie," "Jane, "Bill" and "Steve" and goes to a lot of trouble to avoid disclosing her or his last name. Nobody is stopping nurses from looking and acting more professional in the workplace. IMO, nurses have brought a lot of this on themselves.
In the facilities in which I've worked in the last decade or so, both physician and nurse name tags have had first and last names on them -- the many of the nurses make a point of covering up their last names on the tag. And nobody is making nurses wear "cartoon studded scrubs," that is their choice; in fact, lots of employers enforce dress codes to try to stop people from wearing unprofessional clothing (like "cartoon studded scrubs") at work, and lots of nurses complain about that. Ditto for what people get called; in my experience, many nurses have some irrational fear of people finding out their last names. I would be delighted to be addressed by my last name at work, but the other nurses have loused that up for me -- I know better than to request that I be addressed as "Ms. elkpark" or "Nurse elkpark" when every other nurse in the place is "Susie," "Jane, "Bill" and "Steve" and goes to a lot of trouble to avoid disclosing her or his last name. Nobody is stopping nurses from looking and acting more professional in the workplace. IMO, nurses have brought a lot of this on themselves.
I agree with this! It frustrates me to no end when I see nurses with long hair down, heavy makeup, heavy perfume, dangly earrings, and super tight scrubs. Nothing about that portrays a professional, it's more like they're ready to hit the club after work. If we want to be treated professionally, then we must act and appear accordingly.
In the facilities in which I've worked in the last decade or so, both physician and nurse name tags have had first and last names on them -- the many of the nurses make a point of covering up their last names on the tag. And nobody is making nurses wear "cartoon studded scrubs," that is their choice; in fact, lots of employers enforce dress codes to try to stop people from wearing unprofessional clothing (like "cartoon studded scrubs") at work, and lots of nurses complain about that. Ditto for what people get called; in my experience, many nurses have some irrational fear of people finding out their last names. I would be delighted to be addressed by my last name at work, but the other nurses have loused that up for me -- I know better than to request that I be addressed as "Ms. elkpark" or "Nurse elkpark" when every other nurse in the place is "Susie," "Jane, "Bill" and "Steve" and goes to a lot of trouble to avoid disclosing her or his last name. Nobody is stopping nurses from looking and acting more professional in the workplace. IMO, nurses have brought a lot of this on themselves.
I agree. If people weren't so stupid about what to wear to work, we might not have the equally stupid dress codes. Although I'd hate to be called "Nurse Vee", any time anyone introduces themself to me as "Mr. Patient" or "Dr. Dockter" I tell them my name is "Mrs. Vee." Usually we laugh and go to first names fairly soon after, but there is one anesthesiologist who still insists upon being called "Dr." and to whom I insist upon being called "Mrs."
And I really did work with a Dr. Dockter. Several of them. Years ago.
"Most nurses have witnessed or been the victims of doctor bullying"?Where are all these horrible places that are described in the article? I've been in nursing for 30 years, in five different states (so far), in a lot of different hospitals/facilities, and I've never worked anywhere where that kind of behavior would be tolerated. I've seen plenty of situations in which a physician could have been more politic and collegial in a given interaction with a given nurse, but have never witnessed anything that I would remotely consider "bullying" (and, no, I am not some self-effacing, masochistic, Nancy Nice Nurse martyr -- if I saw any actual inappropriate behavior, I would be the first person to call it out).
I've seen it. Over a period of several years, escalating, this particular surgeon who was on a team of surgeons who were one out of two in the world who did this particular, life saving procedure screamed at nurses, threw scalpels and other instruments across the patient on the OR table, and physically pushed nurses out of his way at the bedside. It was finally taken seriously by the hospital administration and he was "spoken to".
But...this, only after it had gone on, as I said escalating over a very long period of time. And of course, he did not loose his job. I don't know if any nurse ever had him charged with battery, which would have been completely within her rights, but...again no obvious repercussions for which ANY nurse would have been immediately fired, reported to the BRN, etc...His "genius" was more valuable. Sad, but true.
I've seen it. Over a period of several years, escalating, this particular surgeon who was on a team of surgeons who were one out of two in the world who did this particular, life saving procedure screamed at nurses, threw scalpels and other instruments across the patient on the OR table, and physically pushed nurses out of his way at the bedside. It was finally taken seriously by the hospital administration and he was "spoken to".But...this, only after it had gone on, as I said escalating over a very long period of time. And of course, he did not loose his job. I don't know if any nurse ever had him charged with battery, which would have been completely within her rights, but...again no obvious repercussions for which ANY nurse would have been immediately fired, reported to the BRN, etc...His "genius" was more valuable. Sad, but true.
I've heard of physicians like that, also, and don't doubt that some of them exist. But that's a long way from an "epidemic" of bullying.
This is what lateral violence looks like. Physicians make substantially more money than nurses, they get more perks, respect and power. Nurses who identify with the aggressor by denying the problem exists, victim blaming and minimizing the abuse that is inherently present within the current medical system are simply passing on the oppression. We have a physician who simply refuses to enter his own orders. It makes us his secretaries and violates company policy but he gets a pass and we are ignored. Is this abuse? Damn right! Any time power is used to the detriment of someone else, it is abuse and nurses who are apologists just perpetuate it. Stop wearing cartoon scrubs, join a union, get rid of your piercings, tats and purple hair and act like the professionals you are but please don't take responsibility for a system that was set up to marginalize you!
This is what lateral violence looks like. Physicians make substantially more money than nurses, they get more perks, respect and power. Some are courteous and respectful. Others are condescending, rude and downright insulting or even violent. Most are seldom held accountable. Nurses who identify with the aggressor by denying the problem exists, victim blaming and minimizing the inherent inequities present within the current medical system are simply passing on the oppression. We have a physician who simply refuses to enter his own orders. It makes us his secretaries and violates company policy but he gets a pass and we are ignored. Is this abuse? Damn right! Any time power is used to the detriment of someone else, it is abuse and nurses who are apologists just perpetuate it. Stop wearing cartoon scrubs, join a union, get rid of your piercings, tats and purple hair and act like the professionals you are but please stop rationalizing a system that was set up to marginalize you!
This is what lateral violence looks like. Physicians make substantially more money than nurses, they get more perks, respect and power. Some are courteous and respectful. Others are condescending, rude and downright insulting or even violent. Most are seldom held accountable. Nurses who identify with the aggressor by denying the problem exists, victim blaming and minimizing the inherent inequities present within the current medical system are simply passing on the oppression. We have a physician who simply refuses to enter his own orders. It makes us his secretaries and violates company policy but he gets a pass and we are ignored. Is this abuse? Damn right! Any time power is used to the detriment of someone else, it is abuse and nurses who are apologists just perpetuate it. Stop wearing cartoon scrubs, join a union, get rid of your piercings, tats and purple hair and act like the professionals you are but please stop rationalizing a system that was set up to marginalize yo!
You have got to be kidding! Refusing to put in his own orders is abuse? You have no idea! The doctor who slammed a nurse across the face with a metal chart was abusive, the one who threw contaminated sharps at a nurse, the one who raped a nurse in a dark room of a deserted OR, and the one who punched the nurse who disagreed with him in front of a patient. That was abusive, as was the physician who screamed profanity at a nurse, the one who kept touching a nurse without her permission and who yanked her skirt down -- that was abusive. But refusing to put in orders? Grow up.
Jusween
37 Posts
Bullying by nature requires a power differential. This is demonstrated everyday by even the semantics used by the medical hierarchy in which nurses work. The term "order" for example is the norm, rather than "prescriptive," which would denote the specific task at hand, rather than a command. Doctors have name tags with their title and last name while nurses have only their first name, inviting an unprofessional intimacy. Physicians wear lab coats where nurses often are garbed in cartoon studded scrubs. Physicians have their own dining, parking and lounge areas while nurses are forbidden from drinking coffee at their workstations. Nurses routinely refer to physicians using their title, nurses are called by their first name if they are even mentioned by name. Physicians "diagnose" while nurses "assess." The entire system was built to validate and maintain the absolute authority of the physician, in the process minimizing the role of the nurse, a mirror image of the stratified gender roles of the time. It is time for a radical re-frame that can only take place when nurses demand respect by joining unions, improving education standards and practices, voting and actively supporting an environment that truly reflects the nursing role. After all, where would a hospital be, even with the best physicians, if there were no nurses?