Nurses encounter difficult patients all the time; occasionally, family members chime in and offer their hostility as well. But as part of a team of nurses caring for patients in an already stressful situation, nurses don’t expect to encounter incivility in their colleagues. Aren’t they supposed to have your back? Unfortunately incivility is no longer limited to patients and family members. When viewed on a colleague to colleague basis, incivility is on the increase.
Dr. Cynthia Clark and Sara Ahten, both registered nurses, recently studied this growing trend and found that serious issues such as physical violence can result from incivility as minor as eye-rolling. (more…)