The Young Are Not for Eating

In my first nursing job I was bullied by the Lieutenant and the General. I was on a simple med-surg unit, not in the military. The Lieutenant was a spinster named Marta and the General was an overweight shorter woman (about 4ft 6in.) who resembled a poltergeist.

The General would check my completed dressing changes and then write me up for not doing them. The Lieutenant would time my lunch breaks and give me the hardest patient assignments. I hated them. I was called into the boss’s office once a week and my file was stuffed with their numerous complaints.

The viciousness of the old school was a rite of passage I wasn't prepared for. It was a silent stranger that was poised to damage the belief I had in nursing. How could we be kind to patients if we were unkind to one another?

Head Nurse would say, “You keep bedside dirty, you no answer call light, you take long lunch break, you put Kibbles ‘N Bits in Marta’s lab coat.” Head nurse was from Japan and when she was angry her eyes would close in on themselves displaying the tortures of Maybelline. “What you have to say?”

“I did not put dog food in Marta’s coat pocket,” I said politely, wincing at the thought of such a cruel act. I was telling the truth; it was Kit ‘N Caboodle (I had a cat).

In the days of team nursing a medication nurse would give the meds for 32 patients. Once, I missed a multivitamin, the General caught the mistake, I called her a midget, and I failed my first probation. The Regime had won or so they thought. Head Nurse liked me and gave me another chance.

I worked harder than ever, kept my mouth shut, and passed the second attempt. No one had warned me that nurses eat their young. They didn't teach that in nursing school.

Later, when I moved on to another job, Head Nurse revealed why she gave me another chance and it surprised me: She liked that I was not ashamed of being gay. To her it showed true courage; she knew the world was changing and she would change with it. She was all too aware that there had been destructive nurses in my path and that they had failed to reduce my self-esteem.

When the military showed me their guns, I pulled out a cannon. I gave 100 percent: I took short lunch breaks; I put beautiful bows on the dressing changes with labels and dates; I constantly emptied wastebaskets; and I triple checked my medication sheets. With the guards standing close, there was no room for failure.

In other jobs I have found there would always be a General and Lieutenant; as well as a Mongoose, Rat, Weasel, and Snake. These are the nicknames of the nurses I’ve encountered who hold prominent positions in my memory. It was the Mongoose who told me, “There are 100 ways to get a nurse fired.”

Nurse Chen, a friend of mine, described these frenemies, “Crows are black all over the world.”

In this new world of nursing there is a term called horizontal violence that describes the old school of bitterness and oppression. When nurses form cliques to seduce powerlessness in the young, they are perpetuating a nursing pathology that condones aggressive behavior. I call this a Regime and it can reside in any med-surg, ER, rehab center, ICU, and Labor and Delivery Unit in the country.

The Regime can be found in Australia, Canada, and even the Philippines. Nurse to Nurse hostility is a universal destructiveness that has a negative impact on the nursing world.

I am encouraging nursing students to speak up in class about this topic. Bring it out into the open and expose it. It is the ugly sister of the nursing community. Isn’t it ironic that, in the spirit of healing, lays a culprit that is psychologically toxic?

To the nursing dinosaurs (including myself), it’s not too late to change bad habits. Instead of generating internal conflict, let’s help the young nurses with our experience and wisdom. I urge everyone to stamp out horizontal violence. Petition those nurses who sabotage and create disharmony.

In every nurse lies a bloom of hope that can nourish the excitement of a young nurse. Try and remember why you became a nurse in the first place. Don’t become a perpetrator of "burnt-out pessimism." Instead, become a cultivator of workplace integration...as well as a phenomenal nurse.

Break the cycle. End the silence. The world, it is a changin'.