Workplace Violence Against Nurses — Neither Inevitable Nor Acceptable

I’ve read about hospital nurses dealing with violence at work, but I always told myself that was something that happened in the emergency room or the psych ward. In oncology, I reasoned, we have relationships with our patients, and I have always felt safe with them.

So begins a harrowing—and remarkably nonjudgmental— story of a really bad day at work, written by Theresa Brown, a nurse who blogs regularly for the NY Times. (AJN will be featuring a profile of Brown in the May issue.)

Unhappy coincidence: It so happens that AJN published a Viewpoint essay on workplace violence in the March issue. Here’s how it starts:

I was working in the ED one day when a patient looked up and threatened to kill me. Grabbing my hand, he squeezed it until I thought it would break. It took several staff members to restrain him and force him to let go. I’ll never forget how he looked into my eyes and smiled as I screamed in pain.

Some of my colleagues said I should file a police report; others told me to get used to this type of behavior and toughen up. I called the police, and although they took my statement, they wouldn’t arrest the patient because he hadn’t inflicted “serious bodily injury.”

The author, Jessica Leigh, offers advice to those who have faced workplace violence as nurses, and makes several recommendations for influencing policies at your hospital or facility, as well as […]

Nurse, Angel, Bride: Where’s the Substance in Coverage of Nurses?

By Barbara Glickstein, MPH, MS, RN. Glickstein is an independent broadcast journalist in NYC and a member of AJN‘s editorial board.

I’m a feminist, public health nurse, and journalist. I know how powerful the mass media is, and I keep an eye on how it represents women—as well as on how it represents and reports about nurses and nursing.

Last week was Fashion Week in New York City and the top designers, after-parties, gossip, and trends were analyzed and criticized. Even so, I was pretty surprised last Saturday when I found two separate NY Times articles on Fashion Week referring to nurses. One by Cathy Horyn, “Even Walking Away, They Still Look Good,” had this line describing a dress by a designer: “One of Ms. Scott’s signature headmistress dresses, in pink wool, had a candy-striper pink collar. It didn’t exactly say ’nurse.’”

NYTimesBoomBoomScreenshotThe second article, by Guy Trebay, quoted fashion designer Cynthia Rowley, who described a waitress “moving with gymnastic ease” through the crowd while adorned in an elegant dress at a new hot spot in Manhattan: “When you come in and see her, at first she’s like a beautiful nurse in white, bringing you your cocktail.” When once she’s dispensed her curative potions, Ms. Rowley added, the nurse–waitress magically “becomes an angel.” And, after a certain amount of time on the job at the Boom Boom Room, the nurse–angel–waitress, Ms. Rowley suggested, “may well ’become a bride’ to one of the monied denizens […]

2016-11-21T13:22:14-05:00September 23rd, 2009|career|2 Comments
Go to Top