At Forensic Notes, we offer targets of bullying a free resource to properly document all aspects of the bullying so that you can prove when you wrote the notes to show the natural progression that bullying often takes.

By working together, we can hopefully put an end to nurse bullying.

As a casualty of bullying, I'd like to thank the former bullying Nurse for her honesty. She is taking responsibility and ownership for what happened during her reign of terror. I found your honesty very meaningful. In my own situation, there was no ownership. When I filed a complaint, I was vilified, defamed and dehumanized even further. There was no willingness by the professionals that I sought out for help, to admit I had been a target of psychological violence. Actually, their attentions were aimed at protecting the bullies, and silencing me. To this day, there has been no resolution, and it has been over 4 years since I left the clinic and hospital that continues to harbor the bullies.

Ownership of destructive behaviors by bullies and corporate goes a long way to restoring the souls of damaged targets. It will also alleviate much of the suffering experienced by targets of bullies.

About ten years ago, I was let go from a job. Not for bullying of course, because despite the fact that the way I treated those around me certainly warranted that kind of action you really can't fire someone for bullying, but because when you're a bully you're also likely insecure, incompetent, self-conscious, lazy and in way over your head. I didn't do the work I needed to do - it was easier to yell and push and shove other people around, all while telling my managers that it certainly wasn't ME not doing the work. It wasn't until after I was fired (for incompetence), that I realized that my incompetence and my behaviour were all part of the same problem. I had lived my whole life feeling like I was somehow less than everyone else around me. So I tried to make them look bad, to make me feel better. I treated them poorly, because that made me feel powerful.

I don't think most bullies ever come to this realization, or ever see themselves in the behaviour. For me, I had to hit rock bottom - broke and bankrupt, jobless, no prospects, couch surfing because I had to home - before I sought professional help and started to learn how my lifelong perception of myself had made me want to put down everyone around me.

Most bullies will read this and never see themselves. I see what I used to be and it makes me ashamed, even all these years later.

Everyone is a victim in a bully situation. The person who is belittled and bullied, and the person who feels so badly about themselves that they think cruelty is more fun than kindness.

Good post.

I also agree that constructive critique is important and all nurses need to be open to hearing it and engaging in discussion regarding practice and professionalism. But that is very different than criticizing someone's practice, behaviour or person.

There is so much to say but I think Sally says much of it so I won't repeat her words, there are also excellent resources included here and other great comments.

What I will say is find a mentor, find someone to talk to who can help you address this issue. Don't leave it and don't continue if you still feel compromised as it can affect your practice and as you say sour your whole nursing experience. If you can't find someone you trust? Then call me.

Wendy Bowles NP

Those professional practice standards, against which we should all be held to account as a condition of membership in this profession, represent our collective agreed-upon core values about what nursing stands for. They reflect the commitment we have to the public trust, and to the integrity of the systems we work in, which require that the relational practice context is as healthy as possible to ensure the most effective delivery of health care. They bind us to such responsibilities as these:

• Treat colleagues, students and other health care workers in a respectful manner
• Address concerns related to disrespectful behavior in the workplace.
• Promote and maintain respectful communication in all professional interactions, and guides others to do the same.
• Recognize and respect the contribution of others on the health care team.

Although I don’t mean to oversimplify the problem, I honestly believe that an important contributor to the current health care climate is the trend in recent years toward the interdisciplinarity and program management philosophies that try to extract us from our professional identities and obligations and turn our administrative sector into a corporate mentality. Without that strong professional orientation and standards framework, we are at the mercy of the managerial imperative, and so many of our leaders struggle with the impossible demands of corporate effectiveness and adhering to the professional ideals that brought them into their leadership roles. It seems high time for us to surface these problems – not to simply point blame at individuals for their behavior and brand them as bullies, which can be quite counterproductive in the end – but to begin to understand our collective responsibility in presenting an alternative model for how we might organize and deliver health care. Nursing systems led by nurses and supported by nursing philosophies, values and standards can make a world of difference in the world. They are caring and compassionate systems that attend to the individualized needs of patients, families and providers. When we sell ourselves short and allow nursing systems to be co-opted for a corporate managerial motivation, we tend to hate what we do and take that discomfort out on others.

So lets keep our eye on the ultimate goal – regaining the capacity to enact a nursing angle of vision on how health care ought to be delivered and the role that nursing can play in making that happen. Bullying is a symptom of a system gone wrong, and we need to be astute at reading the signals as well as strategic in proposing system-level solutions!

Kudos to the author for tackling the subject, and thank you for your bravery!

I know that we've struggled with this a long time, and I think that compassion and involvement will go a long way to help! Ensuring that staff are empowered to work with one another instead of against, and to help foster a safe space for people to speak up if the need arises will be important parts of that too!

I agree it's time that we started living up to the high ideals that we strive for - not just in patient care but in care of the profession and everyone else around us!