Positive And Negative Effects Of Incivility On The Nursing Field

Workplace incivility is increasingly being recognized as a serious problem in society. Most of the time, incivility often makes the work environment a frightening, harmful, and unhealthy place. Furthermore, it has a negative effect on the micro level as well. This paper will define incivility, its impacts on the nursing field, and what can be done to promote a healthy work environment.
According to Matthews and Ritter (2016), incivility is defined as a low-intensity behavior with an ambiguous intent to harm the target. Some common examples include ignoring a coworker or making rude remarks. In addition (Merriam-webster.com, 2017) defined incivility as any hostilities, bullying, rude, or discourteous acts that happen in a workplace environment.
According to the American Nurses Association Code of Ethics, nurses should maintain caring and professional relationships with each other as well as with patients (American Nurses Association, 2015). New employees and travel nurses face many incivilities when starting a new job. A lot of them get bullied or disrespected because of their working style. As a matter of fact, one day at work, I witnessed an incivility between two of my coworkers that left me speechless. There was a new nurse at the hospital where I used to work at, although she was a good nurse, she was not a team player. Whenever she works there have been always an argument between her and the day shift nurses. They constantly bullied her. One night, I was working with her, one of her patients delivered her baby. Because she didn’t help me with my assignments earlier, I decided not to help her either when she had the delivery. She spent three hours procrastinated and didn’t have time to finish her assignments. When the day nurse who was getting her assignment came and found out she was still not done transitioning the baby she got so upset that she threw a phenylketonuria (PKU) slip at the night nurse. I was so shocked when that happened, I couldn’t even find my words. I told the day shift nurse to calm down and tell me what was left to do so I could help. She replied that she just wanted the nurse to do her job because she’s very lazy and not a team player. Although the night nurse was selfish, she still didn’t deserve to get treated that way. It made me feel so uncomfortable and so bad for that nurse. It was just an awful altercation to witness. The night nurse never reported her. As a result, there has been never any consequences. Since that altercation, there was always tension whenever the two nurses were in the same room. Consequently, they never talked to each other until the day nurse quit the job. All