Workplace Bullying

I have been reading the varioud responses and thoughts regarding nursing, and the state of nursing with a great interest. Reactions I have seen range from angry to dejected. But there doesn't seem to be a lot of proactivity involved. Many nurses complain about the meaness of fellow nurses but don't know what they can do about it. Many have been abused for so long that they seem to think that whole thing is a nautural built-in for nursing. Others seem to think their nursing license also licensed them to be cruel and inconsiderate of others--including patients. After reading several articles about nursing "eating its young" and what we Americans choose to call Workplace Abuse I'm beginning to get a clearer picture of what reaally is wrong with out wonderful profession. My conclusions at this point: (1) nurses in general are attracted to the pain of martrydom, (2) nurses in America are thwarted by the weight and constraint of Political Correctness, (3) too many of us forget why we chose nursing. One of my Psychology professors told me that people who enter the helping fields do so for deep seated reasons. I believe that we who enter nursing, other than for an income source, enter because we have this drive to help people who need help. The trouble is, along the way we learn to beat out chest and moan that it is taking far too much out of us. With regard to the constraints of political correcness, if we ALL called wrong wrong, and stood our ground against injustice in all of its evil forms, things might be different. In America we nursea aren't experiencing workplace abuse, we are being BULLIED, it is that plain. In medicine we tend to attach what are considered more pointed words to a disease, when in actuality the words we use distort the deeper significance of things. For example, myocardial infarction sounds too cerebral for the average person out in public, and so they close off to the words. But, how many of you, in your patient teaching have used the words heart attack and noticed that the patien and families give undivided attention? The same goes for the various forms of bullying we see and expereince as nurses. Two years ago I conducted an interesting pilot study regarding the existance of workplace bullying at a hospital in Oklahoma City. The results were both expected and apalling. Ninety percent of the nurses who responded to my survey indicated they had experience workplace bullying several times in the past year, but seventy three percent of them indicated that they would not choose to become proactive against such injustices. Rather, the majority indicated they would either leave the unit where they work, leave the hospital, or leave nursing completely. Why have we chosen nursing as a career? I believe that should be the most imoportant question we nurses--worldwide--address for 2001 and beyond. We supposedly work to better the lives of those we are entrust the care of. Aren't we also entrusted with the care of each other?