Colleagues,
Three weeks ago, 170 new nurses joined our profession after graduating from the UAMS College of Nursing. BSN graduate Tyler Dawson spoke at the hooding and pinning ceremony about recently being a patient and thanked the paramedics, doctors and nurses who helped care for him.
“It was through this experience, here at the end of my journey through nursing school, that I truly gained insight into what it means to be a nurse,” he said. “My hope for each graduate is that you never forget the profound impact you have. May you always recognize the significance of your every action, word, and gesture, knowing that in the lives of those you care for, you are a source of light in what might seem to be a sea of darkness.”
This is a great reminder for all of us of what an honorable profession nursing is and how we are called to serve others. Your actions, words, and gestures affect not only those you care for but also your UAMS colleagues.
When I took on the interim CNO role last October, I promised to begin working to stabilize staffing across all of our clinical areas. There’s still more work to do, but I am hearing from you that we are in a better place than six months ago, with ratios maintained, charge nurses taking fewer full patient assignments, and recruitment/retention looking up in most departments.
Stable staffing is not enough, though. I want you to have healthy and thriving practice environments. Re-energizing our practice environment is one of the challenges I expected when I took on this role. What has been surprising is the amount of time and energy I have devoted in the past few months to situations when nurses and nursing staff have behaved unprofessionally or outside of our code of conduct.
I have very strong feelings about interactions between team members that disrupt our patient care areas or make others feel unsafe or threatened, including patients and families. We must respect each other and behave appropriately in order to have a healthy, satisfying practice environment.
Over the next few months, I will be sharing more about efforts to address workplace violence. I’d like to start with “worker-on-worker” violence, also referred to as lateral or horizontal violence or workplace bullying.
According to this journal article, horizontal violence can be defined as hostile, aggressive, and harmful behaviors toward coworkers via attitudes, actions, words, or other behaviors such as bullying, incivility, or hazing. While this can occur across all healthcare professions, nurses are especially impacted, with one study estimating that 22% to 44% of nurses experience bullying at some point in their professional careers.
Across our profession, an alarming number (some estimates are as high as 60%) of new nurses leave their jobs due to some form of verbal abuse from a co-worker in their first six months of work. Understandably, this violence often leads to burnout or a decision to leave the institution, or even nursing altogether.
I cannot think of any scenario when it would be OK for any UAMS team member to behave in a way that makes someone else feel unsafe, whether it’s a co-worker, patient, or visitor. I understand that work can be frustrating and stressful, but taking that frustration out on a co-worker or displaying this frustration inappropriately in patient care areas is not acceptable.
Let me just call it out . . . in some of our settings, the use of profanity seems to have become an accepted “norm.” The use of profanity in our professional workplace is not acceptable and makes many people uncomfortable. Profanity directed toward another person can make them feel unsafe and threatened – this is bullying. Our UAMS code of conduct has not changed regarding the use of profane language — it has been and remains a violation.
I urge you to report lateral hostility or worker-on-worker workplace violence you witness or are experiencing here at UAMS using the appropriate incident reporting link on i-safe. The i-safe system is designed to provide a safe space to report incidents. We want to ensure all UAMS employees feel safe in their work environment, but we need to know there is a problem in order to address inappropriate conduct.
I need a commitment from you to not only speak up when something is wrong but also model our Core Values. If you’re feeling stressed or need help, reach out. UAMS offers support, including the Employee Assistance Program at 501-686-2588.
As always, we want to hear from you. Please let us know how we can help. Share your ideas with your manager or send me a note at JonesTammy@uams.edu.
Tammy Jones, PHD, RN, NE-BC
Chief Nursing Officer
Associate Vice Chancellor for Patient Care Services & Clinical Operations
Perioperative, Interventional & Imaging Services Division