The Nurses: A Year of Secrets, Drama, and Miracles with the Heroes of the Hospital (54 page)

“nurses are nearly twice as likely . . .”
Lois Berry and Paul Curry, “Nursing Workload and Patient Care,” Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions, 2012.

“the actual number . . .”
“Guidelines for Preventing Workplace Violence . . .”

sixteen times more likely . . .
See, for example, “Workplace Violence in Healthcare Settings,” Center for Personal Protection and Safety, August 2011; see also Alex Rose, “Protection Sought for Healthcare Workers,”
Delaware County Daily Times
, March 2, 2011.

In 2012, Douglas Kennedy . . .
See, for example, Ann Curry and Carl Quintanilla, “Douglas Kennedy Speaks out for First Time Since Confrontation with Two Nurses,”
Today
, April 13, 2012.

hospital had not discharged . . .
See, for example, “Statement on Northern Westchester Case Does Not Address Assault on Nurses,” Targeted News Service, April 4, 2012.

concerned maternity nurses . . . “through the air.”
Ibid.

Kennedy went downstairs . . . welfare of a child
. Ibid.

superiors told them not to report . . .
Interviews.

Nurses who don’t keep . . .
See, for example, Elizabeth Simpson, “Danger in the ER Health,”
Virginian-Pilot
(Norfolk), April 13, 2012; August Gribbin, “Hospital Health Hazard,”
The Washington Times
, February 10, 2002.

Tammy Mathews . . . hospital fired her
. Lauren Auty, “Nurses Face an Epidemic of Violence in Hospitals,”
Philly.com
, December 1, 2011.

between 65 and 80 percent . . .
“Workplace Violence in Healthcare Settings,” Center for Personal Protection and Safety, August 2011;
Emergency Department Violence Surveillance Study
, November 2011.

“incidents of violence . . .”
“Guidelines for Preventing Workplace Violence . . .”

a Massachusetts judge . . .
Elaine Thompson, “Hurt Healing Hands: Effort to Protect Health Workers,”
Telegram & Gazette
(Massachusetts), April 8, 2010.

hospitals that encourage nurses . . .
See, for example,
Emergency Department Violence Surveillance Study
, August 2010; “ED Nurses Seeking Protection from Violence,”
Hospital Employee Health,
July 1, 2010;
Emergency Department Violence Surveillance Study
, November 2011.

“Victims are often untrained . . .”
“Preventing Workplace Violence,” American Nurses Association Occupational Health and Safety Series, 2006.

In 2007, a drug-seeking patient . . . “actually getting worse.”
JoNel Aleccia, “Swearing, Spitting, Choking: ER Nurses Endure This and More.”
Vitals
,
msnbc.com
, November 9, 2011. Nurses’ tolerance is expected to be even higher than patients’ tension. A New York ER nurse said that a patient scratched her, bit her, spit on her, and hit her so hard that her jaw broke. The attacker later told her, “I’m sorry. I was tired of waiting.” “Workplace Violence in Healthcare Settings,” Center for Personal Protection and Safety, August 2011.

“What I don’t have patience for . . .”
Interview.

many hospitals aren’t providing . . .
Interviews.

In nearly three-quarters of assaults . . .” Emergency Department Violence Surveillance Study
.

“They want the nurses to ignore it . . .”
Interview.

More assaults occur . . .
See, for example, “ED Nurses Seeking Protection from Violence,”
Hospital Employee Health
, July 1, 2010.

target nurses.
Examination of Bureau of Labor Statistics data on assaults causing occupational illnesses and injuries involving days away from work: 64 percent of assaults against healthcare practitioners and techs were against nurses. See also “Nonfatal Occupational Injuries and Illnesses Requiring Days Away from Work, 2010.” News Release.
Bureau of Labor Statistics
, November 9, 2011; “Occupational Hazards in Hospitals,”
CDC Workplace Safety and Health
, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, April 2002; “Workplace Violence in Healthcare Settings.”

hospitals don’t train their staff
Interviews.

“My residents get more training”
Interview.

Tennessee state senators . . . five to four vote
Steven Hale, “Ford Lashes Out at Nurses,” Tennessee Report, February 15, 2012.

Attacking a nurse is still only a misdemeanor
Ken Steinhardt, “Progress on Felony Workplace Assault Laws,”
ENA Connection
8, no. 2, February 2014.

In 2006, Brenda Coney . . . killed a pharmacist.
Charles Broward, “Jury Sides with Family of Killed Shands Pharmacist,”
Florida Times Union
, October 1, 2011.

trauma patient who had been stabbed
Author correspondence with Paul Matera; see also August Gribbin, “Hospital Health Hazard,”
The Washington Times
, February 10, 2002.

punched Matera . . . what he was doing.”
Author correspondence with Paul Matera.

The American Medical Association gave him
August Gribbin

“The whole Nurse Jackie thing”
Resources for nurses trying to stop substance abuse are listed in Chapter 10. For ease of reference, you can find a good preliminary list of links and contact information on this website:
http://www.peerassistance.com/links.htm

“The nurse treats colleagues”
The ANA’s
Code of Ethics For Nurses
; see
http://nursingworld.org
.

“Somewhere along the line”
Interview.

“I knew the minute”
Interview.

Relationship-Based Care program
Developed by Creative Healthcare Management; see
http://chcm.com/relationship-based-care/
.

“silent epidemic”
Laura A. Stokowski, “A Matter of Respect and Dignity: Bullying in the Nursing Profession,”
Medscape.com
, September 30, 2010.

“professional terrorism,”
Malcolm A. Lewis, “Will the Real Bully Please Stand Up,”
Personnel Today,
May 1, 2004.

“insidious cannibalism”
Penny Sauer. “Do Nurses Eat Their Young? Truth or Consequences,”
Journal of Emergency Nursing
, January 2012.

“the dirty little secret of nursing.”
Theresa Brown, “When the Nurse is a Bully,”
The New York Times,
February 11, 2010. Brown is also the author of
Critical Care: A New Nurse Faces Death, Life, and Everything in Between
.
HarperOne
(2010).

75 percent of nurses had been verbally
Michelle Rowe and H. Sherlock, “Stress and Verbal Abuse in Nursing: Do Burned Out Nurses Eat Their Young?”
Journal of Nursing Management
13, 2005.

only 23 percent said no.
Shellie Simons, “Workplace Bullying Experienced by Massachusetts Registered Nurses and the Relationship to Intention to Leave the Organization,”
Advances in Nursing Science
31, no. 2 (2008).

“Most of us could probably . . . ”
“Bullying in the Workplace: Reversing a Culture,” American Nurses Association,
Nursebooks.org
, Maryland (2012).

Portugal
See, for example, Luis Sa and Manuela Fleming,
Issues in Mental Health Nursing,
29 (2008).

Finland
See, for example, Mika Kivimäki, Marko Elovainio, and Jussi Vahtera, “Workplace Bullying and Sickness Absence in Hospital Staff,”
Occupational and Environmental Medicine
57 (2000); Cheryl A. Dellasega,
American Journal of Nursing
.

Australia
See, for example, Suzanne Lappeman, “Nurses Are the Bullies, Says Lucas,”
Gold Coast Bulletin
(Australia), November 24, 2010; Denise Cullen, “Nursing Initiative Pays Off,”
Weekend Australian
, January 15, 2011; Penny Sauer.

New Zealand
Brian G. McKenna et al., “Horizontal Violence: Experiences of Registered Nurses in Their First Year of Practice,”
Journal of Advanced Nursing
42; Janette Curtis, Isla Bowen, and Amanda Reid, “You Have No Credibility: Nursing Students’ Experiences of Horizontal Violence,”
Nurse Education in Practice
7, no. 3 (May 2007).

Ireland
See, for example, Eithne Donnellan, “Most Migrant Nurses Bullied—Study,”
The Irish Times
, May 7, 2010.

Canada, Taiwan . . . Turkey.
“Bullying in the Workplace: Reversing a Culture,” American Nurses Association; Penny Sauer.

Taiwan
See also H. C. Pai and S. Lee, “Risk Factors for Workplace Violence in Clinical Registered Nurses in Taiwan,”
Journal of Clinical Nursing
(May 2011).

Poland
Dorota Merecz et al., “Violence at the Workplace—A Questionnaire Survey of Nurses,”
European Psychiatry
21 (2006).

Japan
Interviews. Thank you to Andrew Robbins and K.O. for assistance in Japan. See also, for example, Kiyoko Abe, “Hierarchical Models of Workplace Bullying Among Japanese Hospital Nurses,” Unpublished Dissertation, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis (May 2007).

“‘angels in white’”
Interview. Other nurses in Japan shared similar sentiments in interviews for this book.

one in three nurses quits . . .
See, for example, Martha Griffin, “Teaching Cognitive Rehearsal as a Shield for Lateral Violence: An Intervention for Newly Licensed Nurses,”
Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing
(November–December 2004).

bullying—not wages—
See, for example, Shellie Simons, “Workplace Bullying Experienced by Massachusetts . . .”; Katrina Creer, “Nurses Scared Off,”
Sunday Telegraph
(Sydney, Australia), August 31, 2003.

nurse bullying is responsible . . . three years.
Martha Griffin.

“It is destroying new nurses”
Interview.

more nurses experience bullying
Judith Vessey, “Bullying of Staff Registered Nurses in the Workplace: A Preliminary Study for Developing Personal and Organizational Strategies for the Transformation of Hostile to Healthy Workplace Environments,”
Journal of Professional Nursing
(September–October 2009); Lyn Quine, “Workplace Bullying in Nurses,”
Journal of Health Psychology
(2001); Janette Curtis.

nurses are verbally abused more
Michelle Rowe and H. Sherlock, “Stress and Verbal Abuse . . . ”

“backbiting and unnecessary scrutiny” . . . “as my peers.”
Alan H. Rosenstein and Michelle O’Daniel, “Impact and Implications . . .”

“nurses eat their young”
J. E. Meissner, “Nurses: Are We Eating Our Young?”
Nursing
, March 1986.

practice festers . . . no nurse is immune.
See, for example, Laura A. Stokowski. Interviews.

“There is a culture of treating”
Interview.

nurse-on-nurse hostility . . . lateral violence.
See, for example, “Workplace Violence: Assessing Occupational Hazards . . . ” Technically, experts say that “bullying” refers to repeated negative actions against a nurse by someone who has power over the victim, such as a charge nurse bullying a staff nurse, or an experienced nurse bullying a new graduate. Horizontal violence, by contrast, can characterize a single incident and occur without the hierarchy variable.

“back-door undermining . . . behaviors.”
Alan H. Rosenstein and Michelle O’Daniel, “A Survey of the Impact . . .”

“being given an unmanageable . . . ”
Shellie R. Simons, Roland B. Stark, and Rosanna F. DeMarco, “A New, Four-Item Instrument to Measure Workplace Bullying.”
Research in Nursing and Health
(2011).

“to stop talking . . . ”
Cheryl Y. Woelfle and Ruth McCaffrey, “Nurse on Nurse,”
Nursing Forum
, July 2007.

“Nonverbal innuendo . . . a negative situation
.” Martha Griffin; L. L. Veltman, “Disruptive Behavior in Obstetrics: A Hidden Threat to Patient Safety,”
American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology
(June 2007).

gossip; ignore
Janice E. Hurley,
Nurse-to-Nurse Horizontal Violence: Recognizing it and Preventing It
, NSNA Imprint, September/October 2006; E. Duffy, “Horizontal Violence: A Conundrum for Nursing,”
The Collegian
, April 1995; C. Dunbar, “Managers Can Prevent Incidents of Horizontal Violence,”
AORN Management Connections
, 2005; Cheryl A. Dellasega.
Connections
, 2005.

Several other behaviors fall . . . condescend
AACN Position Statement, “Zero Tolerance for Abuse.”

belittle . . . exclude a nurse from socializing.
See, for example, Janice E. Hurley et al.

when nurses give hints . . . monitoring a peer’s work
. See, for example, Shellie Simons, “Workplace Bullying Experienced by Massachusetts Registered Nurses and the Relationship to Intention to Leave the Organization,”
Advances in Nursing Science
(April–June 2008).

“manipulating . . . to turn against a nurse.”
Cheryl A. Dellasega.

Verbal sexual harassment . . . less prominently
. See, for example, Curtis et al.

“sexual harassment . . . behaviour from patients.”
Brian G. McKenna, “Experience Before and Throughout the Nursing Career.”
Horizontal Violence: Experiences of Registered Nurses in Their First Year of Practice
.

The Workplace Bullying Institute . . . “car she drives.”
Gary and Ruth Namie,
The Bully at Work
, Sourcebooks, 2000
.

“the Troll” or “Bitch on wheels.”
Interviews.

higher body mass index
Mika Kivimäki et al.

making fun of their clothes . . .
Interviews.

“make themselves feel better . . .”
Interview.