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Speaker 1: Welcome back to Nursing Uncensored. I am your host, Adrian Anne.

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I am a nurse. I work in a clinic now.

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I used to work in the hospital. I've been doing

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this podcast for like seven years now, and I actually

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did an episode back in April of twenty twenty that

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I kind of wanted to revisit.

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Speaker 2: What was I even doing.

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Speaker 1: I don't even want to think about what I was

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doing in April of twenty twenty.

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Speaker 2: We don't.

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Speaker 1: None of us have to think about what we're doing

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in April of twenty twenty. Let's talk about something that

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I do think is important and is valid, and I

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think is one of many topics that I want to

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address in the coming months.

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Speaker 2: But I want to.

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Speaker 1: Talk about like professional incivility bullying, that sort of thing

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I've talked about how it occurs on the impatient unit

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and how it can affect all sorts of things from

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morale to teamwork, which you know all eventually trickles down

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on leads to worst patient outcomes. But working anywhere in

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healthcare means working closely with people under pressure. Most of

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us are going to expect that there's going to be

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some stress, short tempers, difficult days like those things all

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happen that you know that is part of the job

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and it comes.

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Speaker 2: With the territory.

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Speaker 1: But there's like a big difference between just having a

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stressful workplace and having an uncivil one. One thing that

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I've noticed in clinic culture is how easy it is

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for subtle workplace sensibility to become normalized. It's not the dramatic,

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obvious kind. It's the quieter version that kind of shows

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up as gossip, exclusion, sarcasm, dismissive comments, like defensive reactions

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to basic questions, or side conversations that leave certain staff

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members feeling isolated, even targeted. It often starts small enough

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that you question yourself and whether or not this is

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really happening. Maybe someone suddenly becomes really cold, avoids speaking

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to you unless absolutely necessary. Maybe questions are hostility instead

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of cluarification. Maybe you know, any concerns you bring up

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or reframed as drama or communication just straight up turns adversarial.

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You might start hearing comments indirectly instead of people addressing

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things professionally indirectly. But the hardest part of these situations

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is that it can be incredibly difficult to explain to

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people who aren't experience having that firsthand. Like I think

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in the last episode I talked about how like how

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do you describe that someone treats you differently or they

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look at you differently, or you know, how do you

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how do you quantify that? How do you track that?

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If you look at it on paper, nothing major has happened.

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There's no screaming match, there's no obvious policy violations. There's

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just this growing sense that the environment has become emotionally

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unsafe and unnecessarily tense, Like why this shit is already

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so stressful?

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Speaker 2: Why do we need to add.

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Speaker 1: Another layer to this fucking onion? Healthcare in every environment

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has a long history of minimizing these dynamics. We've all

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heard people say like, oh, that's just how she is.

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Oh they're just blunt, or they're direct, or you need

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thicker skin, or you know, that's that's just the nature

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of the job. But chronic incivility affects teams, whether leadership

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acknowledges it or not. People stop asking questions, and we

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know that, at least in nursing as a discipline, when

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you stop asking questions, you become dangerous. This is like

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a basic tenet of like nursing education, Like we're lifelong

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learners and so we are supposed to remember that. Like

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it's not just a matter of getting thicker skin, Like.

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Speaker 2: It's do better, be better.

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Speaker 1: So, yeah, people don't feel as comfortable asking questions. They

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don't feel comfortable speaking up when errors are about to occur,

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and in a procedural space or in an OAR, that

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can be really dangerous. So it's like when people start

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acting differently around you, you start feeling uncomfortable, you start

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avoiding them. Maybe the things that are normally not an

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issue become escalated misunderstandings because nobody feels comfortable having the

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straightforward conversation. What makes these situations even more complicated is

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that the people involved in these jobs are often good

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at their jobs. Like we're not talking about you know,

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people that have problems completing their tasks. Shit still gets done,

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Lists are getting checked off, you know, patients are being seen,

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work is getting done, neds are getting ordered. So the

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interpersonal fallout is like just dismissed as like a personality conflict.

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But professionalism is more than just task completion, Like you

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can do a job extremely.

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Speaker 2: Well and be a really disagreeable.

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Speaker 1: Person healthcare relies on communication, trust, teamwork. Like if you

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don't trust your team, that's not a great team. Like

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that's true of any type of team. You can be

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efficient and still create an environment that exhaust the shit

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out of everyone.

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Speaker 2: But as nurses, we're taught to.

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Speaker 1: Tolerate discomfort, Like we're trained to do it trying to

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hold our bladders for twelve hours, even though we know

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it's terrible for us. But do we do it anyway? Yeah,

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because that's what we're taught, we're supposed to do. It's

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how we're pushed. So we tell ourselves not to be sensitive.

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We keep moving, We try to just keep going, and

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the whole time we're dealing with shit that should not

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be happening, you know. And then you're trying to stay

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professional while the other people may not be staying professional.

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So it's like, how do you play by the rule

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and when when nobody else is playing by the poor

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there's like an overall I don't know theme to this,

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and that's that there's a difference between being resilient and

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just accepting chronic disrespect and unprofessional behavior. One of the

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most important things someone can do in this kind of

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environment is to stop internalizing the behavior. A lot of

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healthcare workers, especially newer staff members, immediately start wondering, am

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I too sensitive? Am I communicating badly? Am I the

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common denominator? And that's like I don't want.

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Speaker 2: To discourage that.

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Speaker 1: Self reflection is healthy, but chronic incivility as a way

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of making reasonable people over analyze themselves while the actual

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inappropriate behavior goes totally unaddressed. Protecting yourselves and these environments

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often means becoming very intentional about things. You have to

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focus on keeping your communication professional, direct and calm, even when,

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as I said, other people are not playing by those

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same rules. It means resisting the urge to defend yourself

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emotionally every time someone makes a passive, aggressive comment tries

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to like bait you. It means documenting patterns privately. Behavior

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starts affecting the workflow, the communication, the way take care

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of your patients, any of that. And unfortunately, it also

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means that understanding that not every work dynamic, every not

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every workplace dynamic can be fixed through just being honest

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and open. Most nurses are conditioned to believe that direct

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communication is going to solve any problem, and sometimes it does,

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but in unhealthy workplace cultures, direct conversations always you know,

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I shouldn't say always, that's that's an over dramatization. But

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like in these types of workplaces, this can lead to

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more gossip, retaliation, and like it just becomes emotionally exhausting

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and stupid.

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Speaker 2: Sorry, but it's stupid.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that we should become cold or distrustful

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of our coworkers. It means that we have to learn

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setting and keeping boundaries. Not every coworker deserves access to

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your personal thoughts, frustrations, vulnerabilities, or rationalites. Not every criticism

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requires a defense, Not every sarcastic comment deserves my engagement,

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your engagement. Sometimes professionalism is less like winning people over,

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and it's more like staying steady, protecting your reputation, remaining objective,

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like keep it to the facts, don't participate in gossip,

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which is so hard. As nurses, we regenerate and get

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power from gossip at the nurses station and in the

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bedroom and in the breakroom and in the elevators. But

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we can't we can't let ourselves fall victim to it,

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and we have to keep reminding ourselves that, like, oh,

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you talk some shit in the breakroom. Well, don't do

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that again, at least not for today and then tomorrow

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make that same promise. Keep healthy relationships with your sane

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and emotionally mature co workers as well, because if you

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feel alone and a sea of people that are just

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kind of passively and slyly shitty to you, like you

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got to have people around you so that you don't

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just hate every second.

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Speaker 2: Of every day you're at your job.

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Speaker 1: You also got to remember, like we are here for

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patient care. Our patients want to know that we're not

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having like all this interpersonal conflict in the background. They

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want to feel safe, They want another shit is being

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done well and that every member of the team is

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functioning at optimum whatever functioning. And here's the thing, this

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is also the hard thing, is that you have to

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pay attention to how leadership responds in these situations. Healthy

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leaderships address patterns of incibility because they understand the morale, communication,

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and the safety of our patients. They're all interconnected. Unhealthy

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leadership or unhealthy leaders or HR or whoever. They minimize

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everything as drama until larger conflicts develop, and this can

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lead to like turnover, burnout, just bad things happening like why.

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That's the thing is like, as I think about this

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and I talk about this, I'm like, why it is

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such a waste of energy?

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Speaker 2: Some people just like to fight.

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Speaker 1: I don't know. And that's another bigger, difficult truth in

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this situation, is it? Sometimes the issue is bigger than

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one difficult coworker. Sometimes the culture itself just quietly rewards clicks, hostility,

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acting nice in front of certain people and not in

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front of others, because productivity and making sure shit is

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getting done is prioritized over professionalism and civility among their coworkers.

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Most nurses are not expecting to have like a perfect workplace,

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and they don't expect to like love and get along

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with every single one of their coworkers. We just want

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environments where like we can ask a question without getting

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our head bitten off, concerns can be addressed directly so

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that our patients get what they need without a lot

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of like dilly dally. We want people to like communicate

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like adults and not take a tone of like nobody

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should be talking like anybody else to anybody else like shit,

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and team members should not feel punished or retaliated upon

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for speaking up when things get out of hand, that's

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not unrealistic. It's basic healthcare professionalism, and honestly, healthcare would

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function a lot better as a whole if we stop

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treating incivility is an unavoidable situation with lots of strong

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personalities in one place, and we started recognizing it for

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what it is.

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Speaker 2: It's a workplace issue that affects.

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Speaker 1: Everyone and ultimately creates worse outcomes for our patients. I

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encourage you to find ways to remind yourself that you

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do not deserve to be treated poorly. You are there

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to do a job in exchange for a paycheck, and

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if you are performing the functions of that job properly,

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that's great. You should not have to worry about whether

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or not you're going to be socially, psychologically, emotionally punished.

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That's how we burn people out.

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Speaker 2: That's why people leave.

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Speaker 1: They either tolerate it for a little bit longer, or

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they leave. And this is not how we should be

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governing our already really fragile web of nurses in our

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cracked and bleeding healthcare system. So those are my two cents.

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I would love to hear what you think in the comments.

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The blog post can be found at nursingusensor dot com

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and thanks for coming back. We'll try to do this

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again soon.

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Speaker 3: The Nursing Uncensored podcast, like nursing itself, can be intense.

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We don't sensor, but we do protect private health information

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has been changed and concealed to comply I retire book.

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We're not talking about you, your mem and your boss's

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wife or anyone you might know. Also, we're real health

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professionals trying to give you factual information. However, you are

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responsible for doing your own research and not taking anything

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we say as medical advice. The opinions expressed here are

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the responsibility of the person expressing them and do not

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reflect those of our employer's educational or professional institutions. I

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hope you learned something, laughed a little, and then you'll

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come back