Course Description
Bullying in nursing is not uncommon. This has been documented for many years in many healthcare organizations. There is a term very common when figuring why so many nurses become stressed out and eventually find another place of employment or consider another profession. Many nurses acknowledge that “nurses eat their young.” While there is no specific data on the prevalence of bullying of CNAs in healthcare organizations, many CNAs experience this as they are at the bottom of the clinical ladder. CNAs are dispensable and can easily be replaced compared to licensed nurses who are more scarce and harder to find or recruit. It is not unusual for licensed nurses to divert the blame to the CNAs when something goes wrong. If there is a need for someone to be blamed for an incident like a fall or a new pressure ulcer, CNAs can be easily blamed even if it’s clear that they have very little to do with what happened.
Learning Objectives
- Acknowledge that bullying is a very common reason why nurses become stressed out and eventually find another place of employment or consider another profession.
- Realize that blame shifting is a form of bullying, where the CNA gets the blame for an adverse incident even though there is no clear evidence that the CNA could have prevented it.
- Know that CNAs are prone to be bossed around and be asked to do stuff that is really not part of their job description.
- Realize that CNAs being reprimanded by licensed nurses in front of the patients/families is a very common form of bullying.
- Understand that organizational leaders play a very important role in stopping and preventing bullying as this can have an adverse effect on patient care.
- Realize that bullying can escalate to workplace violence.
- Acknowledge that it is very important to report when you feel you are being bullied by someone in the organization and also know how to report these incidents.