What is your best advice for a new grad who may deal with harassment (of any kind) by patients, colleagues, upper management? What if you are being harassed by those higher in chain of command?
Repeat this all day ling- QTIP- -- quit taking it personal. They have had personality problems longer than they have known you. You're just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
It's critical that new nurses understand that the old ways of our profession are fortunately no longer acceptable in today's society; by that I mean the workplace culture of bullying summarized by the phrase "nurses eat their young".
Document it, notify HR when necessary, protect your mental health. We can't care for our pts if we don't first take adequate care of ourselves.
Nurse bullying is VERY real. Stay true to who you are, no matter what happens, maintain your integrity. We are a new generation of nurses who are standing up against being treated unjustly. We are bringing compassion and competence back to nursing. Our mission is to heal in the name of Jesus.
When
It is important to differentiate between lateral violence (bullying between coworkers) and harassment (this is between staff and those in higher up positions). Each facility should have a reporting process, but it might be different for coworkers vs managers.
As far as patients go: there are some patients that behave badly because they are in a situation where they are not in control and they lash out. As well, some patients have neurological injuries that make it more difficult for them to regulate their behavior. In these cases, it's important to take the high road while still setting limits. Other patients are just unfortunately not very nice people to begin with and being in the hospital doesn't help. You do not have to take abuse from patients but it does not help to fight fire with fire. In some cases, it's just not a good personality fit and the patient should be assigned a different nurse. You can get support from your charge nurse and manager. Setting limits in a professional way (acknowledge how they are feeling, let them know that what they are saying is not acceptable then let them know what you plan to do. For example: "I can see that you are really frustrated that you are not allowed to leave the hospital. I can't have you yelling at me to let you leave. I'm going to let you take a break to calm down, and later we can talk about your discharge plan).
Threatening is never ok and that does require escalation. Your facility should have a policy on how to handle it.
Stick up for yourself!!
If you can get any written evidence or a witness of harassment that is best otherwise HR may not recognize it. I do agree not to take things personally.
