Lateral violence

December 10, 2011 -- In an article entitled No Tolerance for Bullying, the Advance Web for Nurses reports that the ten common behaviors of lateral violence in nurses, as described by Martha Griffin, PhD, RN, CS, director of nursing education and research at Boston Medical Center, Boston, are: non-verbal innuendo, verbal affront, undermining actions, withholding information, sabotage, infighting, scapegoating, backstabbing, failure to respect privacy and broken confidences. Have you seen these in the workplace? Whom of us hasn't?

Lateral violence is getting increasing attention in the media. Another recent article at the www.nursetogether.com web site entitled, Ending Incivility in the Nursing Profession posits that lateral violence is often considered normal by nurses and describes it as an "oppressed group behavior".

As I have seen, it starts even before the workplace -- it starts in nursing school. I had several experiences of it there. Though I was careful about interpersonal politics, run-ins with the bizarre personalities of some people in positions of power proved unavoidable. For example, one of my teachers, a rather strange man who in his lectures delighted in showing to our class videos of himself dancing in a pink tutu and boasted about the low prices of prostitutes in Thailand, took a strong and personal dislike to me and on one occasion accosted me in the hallway and, unprovoked, threatened, "I could flunk you! I could get you kicked out!" When asked about it in a meeting with the director, he denied the hallway incident and accused me of "having an agenda" though what that agenda might have been he would not say. The director did nothing.

The problem lies not only with individuals but with institutions. Lateral violence had occurred, yet no action was taken. As in some hospitals, some nursing schools do nothing to curb it. They ignore it rather than deal with it. From the director's perspective, in a few months I would be gone whereas the teacher would likely be there for years so her easiest action was to overlook his transgressions. The lesson to me was to expect no integrity from nursing institutions. Shame on them.

Is it the culture of nursing or the culture of the school that creates the climate of impunity for these behaviors? Does it matter? Regardless of the source, an ethically-run institution should not tolerate such behaviors. I stuck it out, turned the other cheek, and collected my sheepskin. Had I known what to expect, I would have chosen a different school, though it's not clear that another would have handled such issues any better.

Lateral violence should be recognized and dealt with. Instead, in nursing we are taught from the beginning to put up with it and that it's even ok to perpetuate it, as such behavior seems not to have consequences. Shame on us.

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