Question

Reflect on an experience in which you were directly involved or witnessed incivility in the workplace. Provide a brief synopsis of the situation. How did this make you feel? How did you respond? What were the consequences of this situation? Provide an example of how this negatively affected the work environment and outcomes. How could the situation have been prevented? Discuss strategies that would support a healthy work environment.

Answer 1

The term incivility defined as impolite offensive speech or comments or rude behavior.They always affect nursing profession in a negative manner and it always cause impact on the work also .I have witness incivility in my workplace and later I understand the situation as a lateral violence .

Lateral violence can be simply explained as bullying , gossiping , criticising individuals openly or secretly towards their co-workers of equal or lower levels .It also include reflection of dissatisfaction with their work settings.

There is situation took place in our work place in which a telemetry nurse found a decline in respiratory status with her patient, and she suddenly seek the help of medical response team.

The critical care staff who was in charge arrived to analyze the whole situation.

When they examined the patient they realized that the patient is not resuscitating intubate status was also nil , on maximum BiPAP settings, and with an active hospice.

The medical response team exhibited annoying behaviour and they stated rolling their eyes, making sarcastic and disrespectful behaviour. Suddenly i felt very bad for the nurse who informed the team .Her morale was affected by their behaviour .I apologized to her for the bad behaviour of my co - workers .And i assured her by saying that she didn’t do anything wrong.Also i made clear to the response team that their behaviour and education provided was very bad .I also tell them that their behaviour will bother the nurse from making decisions based on that the best care for the patients will be in vain . She was reluctant to call the medical response team as she valued patient care more than anything else.

Sometimes incivility is targeted to person who has less power and it is unsafe for patients, and costly for the facility also . Workplace incivility leads to some major consequences for a facility which includes increased employee turnover, losing employees, stress-related illness and damage to reputation and brand. It can be prevented only by educating staff about lateral violence.

As a nurse it is her duty to understand such situation and aware of others behaviour . Above all she have to overcome such bullying and should confront every situation positively . If we are able to extend our kindness to our co workers then as a nurse become a new model for the future generations to treat each other well and support healthy working environment.

There will be changes only after a nurse identify the realities of lateral violence in their work place and implement suitable policy to overcome them.