Conflict Within The Field Of Nursing

In nursing, there is a growing concern called, horizontal violence. Horizontal violence is an act of aggression from one nurse to the other. Horizontal violence impedes teamwork, hinders patient care and causes a negative work environment (Becher & visovsky, 2012).

Nurses continually strive to bring holistic, efficient, and safe care to their patients. However, if the safety and well-being of the nurses are threatened or compromised, it is difficult for nurses to work effectively and efficiently. Therefore, the position of the American Nurses Association (ANA) advocate that every nursing professional have the right to work in a healthy work environment free of abusive behavior such as bullying, hostility, lateral abuse and violence, sexual harassment, intimidation, abuse of authority and position and reprisal for speaking out against abuses (American Nurses Association, 2012).

Thanks for bringing up conflict. Conflict is something that is unavoidable. The way a nurse handles

“Conflict is commonly perceived as being a negative issue. However, the experience of dealing with conflict can lead to positive outcomes for nurses, colleagues, and clients” (College of Nurses of Ontario (CNO), 2009, p. 3). Learning opportunities within a clinical setting arise may arise out of conflict. This paper will focus on an interprofessional nurse-physician conflict within the public health setting. The following conflict requires an understanding of cold chain and cold chain excursions. Cold chain is defined as the procedure and equipment utilized to maintain appropriate temperature of vaccine to ensure safety and a cold chain excursion is characterized by vaccine that has been exposed to inappropriate temperatures (Government of Ontario, 2013). The nurse-physician conflict experienced arose during a routine cold chain inspection at a family health team’s office. The doctor within the establishment is provided with publicly funded vaccine, from the public health unit, which has been exposed to multiple cold chain excursions. Access to publicly funded vaccine is provided to multiple health units. When facilities are provided with vaccine the expectation is that Vaccine Storage and Handling Guidelines provided by the Ontario Government will be followed. During this routine inspection it was discovered that the doctor, responsible for vaccine safety, had multiple cold chain excursions without following the Vaccine Storage and Handling Guidelines. In the

“Staff turnover not only impacts the clinical unit but also the organization’s financial outlook. Because nurses are opting to leave a hostile environment, “new staff must be hired and trained, resulting in increased costs” (Blevins, 2015, p. 380) that according to Clark (as cited by Blevins) costs $300 billion annually. Paramount to the impact of incivility among nurses is the effect on patient care. Lack of teamwork, clarification, and care will lead to sentinel events that could have otherwise been

Lateral violence is described as a non-physical act occurring between individuals and is intended to hurt another person emotionally. It may be a secretive or noticeable act of verbal or non-verbal hostility. The actions can extend exterior to the place of work and can be perpetrated individually or in cyberspace. Within the nursing community, lateral violence is described as aggression behaviors amongst nurses. The most common forms of lateral violence in the nursing practice include: undermining actions, withholding information, interference, backbiting, incrimination, backstabbing, broken confidences, and failure to respect the privacy of another person. Workplace conflict leads to adverse impacts on registered nurses, patients, other

NHS (2015) recommends nurse as a leader; must intervene efficiently in the initial stages of conflict by preventing and handling that behaviour in care setting and manage risks. Nurse should hence create and maintain environment which is safe for them and others, follow policies and work with others to seek advice to reduce escalation of aggression and

McNamara (2012) stated that prevention is one approach to handling incivility. She suggested that there should be a comprehensive and methodical approach when it comes to preventing incivility. She suggested improvements for all personnel within the hospital. McNamara (2012) suggested that nurses should aim to improve their conflict resolution skills. She also suggested that nursing managers should provide access to workshops and classes that help their nurses with improvement of conflict resolution skills. Her last suggestion was that hospital officials should display the real picture and position of nurses and hospitals to the community. McNamara (2012) also stated that there must be a clear, written standard for behavior, stating what is

In nursing, as in most industries, when looking to blame someone for the existence of incivility, most look upward (figure 3). Managers, supervisors and instructors are often sought out for guidance and for modeling appropriate, team-building behaviors.

I was astounded to find that incivility was a “common problem” in today’s workforce (Owens, 2012). I understand that we all have high paced jobs, but that is no excuse to be uncivil towards your coworkers. Nurses especially, should be civil to each other since we are dealing with people’s lives. We depend on one another in times of crisis; and if there are hard feelings, it would be difficult to do our jobs effectively. In turn, that

Violence towards nurses can often be done by aggression or physical assault, threatening behaviors and behavior that causes emotional or physical harm. The violence will not stop, but it could be reduced by passing laws and more security programs towards the nurses. Reglaments in hospitals are now used to protect the life of nurses that are affected by patients and their families during the workplace. In the nursing field there is no perfect way to handle violence because there will always be one angry patient. Nursing is possibly the hardest workplace to handle violence. Patients will always refuse to get

Individual behavioural differences in agreeableness and emotionality between the previous Director of Nursing and the current Director have created conflict amongst the staff. Ms. Gresick can be reactive, antagonistic and short tempered towards employees and management. Her rigidity in regards to the chain of command and constant assertion of power has led to increased conflict, low staff moral and increased staff turnover. Two weeks before resigning, long

As a future nurse administrator, I have to assess what the root is of the current discord in the unit amongst staff. Setting aside for the mean time my personal conflicts with some members I have to investigate and keenly identify what possibly contributes to the misunderstandings. I have to be objective and ignore the fact that the other staff gossip about me. I have to gather data as accurately as I could.

A nurse’s conflict between advocating for a patient and following the physician's orders comes from primarily the physician having more power. The physician goes through much more schooling and training than a nurse. A physician has the final say in what is being done to a patient. The different types of training a physician goes through puts them at a higher power. A nurse usually spends more time with a patient and gets to know them better than a physician. So when a nurse advocates for a patient, they are doing what they think is best because they have gotten to know the patient. Because of the physician having more say and power the nurse can only say so much even if they want to do and say more to help their patient. If a nurse oversteps

The hierarchy system is another the most common cause of nurse bullying and interpersonal communication problems (Granstra, 2015). Typically, a problem nurse has a higher position of power, whether it be charge nurse or supervisor. A nurse with seniority is more likely to bully a new nurse due to not being given the power they believe they deserve. This type of nurse is likely to watch a new nurse fail instead of helping the nurse become better practiced and educated.