There is a saying in nursing known as “nurses eat their young.” This refers to workplace bullying in which the older and experienced nurses will bully the new grads or even students. But during a pandemic, it is counterproductive to prey on the new nurses trying to make a difference rather than to care for the sick. Even more, it makes them question their career choice altogether. To stop workplace bullying and save lives, it comes down to standing up for yourself.
These new nurses are a privilege to work with, as they are an extra set of hands. They make patient assignments easier, can help with transfers, pick up extra shifts and just be present in case of an emergency.
Most of these behaviors stem from an early age too. It’s the mean kids and cliquey behavior in high school that goes into healthcare. It’s the same people, just grown up and now in scrubs. What’s interesting is the way they treat their patients isn’t the way they treat others and it goes to show who these people are at their core.
Bullying happens when the bully itself has bystanders on their side. They pick on those who do not know the ways and essentially cannot fit in. The victims tend to be those with no confidence to fight for themselves.
Bullying in nursing can usually come from older nurses who were trained differently than modern nurses now. They are used to doing things in an old-fashioned way and have their own techniques and methods. They think that new nurses cannot live up to their standards.
Also, being an older nurse is a form of superiority to the new nurses that are just starting off on the unit. They have their way of running the floor and believe the newer nurses will be a burden to that.
Some examples of nurse bullying can include purposely not including calls for help, talking behind another nurse’s back, and not being inclusive of other nurses. During a nursing shortage, these behaviors need to be fixed to improve the overall future of healthcare.
Many unit managers are not equipped to deal with workplace bullying and aren’t even present for most of it as their job requires them to handle more of the business and administrative side. It’s easy for them to side with the older nurses with seniority even though this may not be fair.
Being a student on rotations in the hospital, I have encountered nurses who were unwilling to work with me and would just ignore me and see me as a burden. It’s a difficult thing to deal with, especially when you’re trying to learn.
Being a nurse is hard enough as it is after going through many hard years of work and starting off on the floor. It’s such an adjustment and new work-life balance, especially for newer and younger nurses starting off in their twenties after college. Older nurses need to realize that they were once in their place and give some grace as they adjust to this new job and all the responsibilities that come with it.
Additionally, newer nurses need to stand up for themselves. It is a scary and intimidating thing to do in front of people with seniority, higher degrees, and more years of experience. But to make the floor and the field a more welcoming place for themselves, newer nurses have to come in with confidence that they can take on the challenge.
Some ways that they can stand up for themselves is for starters, to confront the bully. Call out the colleague or the precepting nurse about how they are treating them. Use evidence instead of emotions to justify the way they’ve been treated. Another way is to start a documentation trail and document all the ways they’ve been treated unfairly so they can report to someone in Human Resources.
Overall, if a nurse is a victim of bullying, that does come with consequences such as lower self-esteem issues or even workplace consequences, it’s important to know that it has no impact on how they are as a nurse and their capabilities. They have so much skill and talent and a workplace bully cannot take that away from them.
Nursing is a big profession with many promising nurses joining every day. They are among a unique group of people that are called to heal and promote health. However, nowhere in the field of nursing makes them stand up to bullying from other nurses. They don’t deserve that, neither does the field itself.
This story was written by Krisha Patel. She can be reached at [email protected].
