Whether you’re a bedside nurse in the ER or, like me, you work with patients one-on-one in the comfort of their own homes, nursing is one of the most rewarding career paths. We dedicate ourselves to being on the frontlines, improving lives every day (or whatever your schedule looks like), and providing plenty of physical, emotional, and even spiritual support during our patients’ most vulnerable moments. So, why is nurse culture so consumed by bullying behind the scenes?

The nursing field is predominantly female. And believe it or not, female nurses are more likely to show aggression toward their fellow nurses through actions like defamation, betrayal, exclusion, and humiliation. If you’ve ever experienced a negative female relationship in the field—or life, for that matter—that fact may not come as a surprise to you.

Although we find ourselves comforting and supporting our patients day-to-day, kindness and care seem to be nonexistent between fellow nurses. To give you some insight into why nursing is notorious for the “mean girl” culture, I’ll uncover some details about its origins, the consequences, and how we can invoke change in the industry.

So, without further ado, let’s dive in!

The History of Nurse Culture

It’s no secret that new nurses have it rough when starting out. The more experienced nurses, who are basically veterans in the field, aren’t always the most welcoming, and the issue isn’t new. It’s all too rare to see a nurse happily take a new nurse under their wing on their own stomping grounds. And, unfortunately, the mean girl attitude often lasts from the beginning of nursing school until retirement. Many people refer to the phenomenon of nurses bullying other nurses as “eating their young”; a term coined approximately 30 years ago by Judith Meissner.

But, why does it happen?

Bullying Between Nurses: Getting to the Root

Bullying has been around since the beginning of time, and it’s widely understood that it can be a result of various personal and even work or school-related problems. Like I said before, females are generally more likely to express aggression toward others, and nursing certainly doesn’t lack female energy. The mean girl culture typically stems from professional competition, competing for promotions, and seemingly “different” treatment that can lead to jealousy. We can all agree on one thing: nursing isn’t an easy job, and bullying can also be due to workload stress, a personal superiority complex, or a nurse’s own bad experiences that have left a bitter taste in their mouth, such as bad experiences with physicians and senior nurses in higher positions.

When troublesome power dynamics cause stress on any particular nurse, the lack of expressing feelings and/or questioning treatment can put a seemingly permanent damper on the mood. Pent-up frustration can lead one nurse to take out their negative emotions on junior nurses, where superiority allows a sense of comfortability to release resentment.

Common Ways Bullying Presents Itself in Nurse Culture

“Eating their young” isn’t a one-size-fits-all scenario. Bullying is understood as negative behaviors that include intimidating, blatantly ignoring, spreading rumors, and purposefully withholding information from particular nurses. It can look different depending on the nurse, the situation, and the extent of their own issues.

Nurses eating their young can also look similar to implementing unfair assignments, assigning crazy workloads, giving unnecessary criticism, and can even go as far as public insults, taunting, and threats. These examples of treatment often present themselves in power struggles, especially between experienced nurses and the junior nurses under their supervision.

If all these examples sound a bit too familiar to you, you’re not alone. Unfortunately, 78 percent of nurses will experience bullying within six months of nursing school. Not to mention, about 50 percent of nursing students have experienced or seen nurse-on-nurse bullying firsthand during clinical rotations. And, according to a study done by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the American Nurses Association, more than half of RNs battle verbal abuse in the field.

Taking Responsibility

When you’re the one being bullied, it’s easy to place blame on the bully. After all, they’re the ones choosing to behave that way, right? But, the mean girl culture of the nursing field is made up of several components—no single person or factor can be responsible for the bullying.

At the end of the day, we nurses are the most responsible for the attitudes we allow and the cultures we enable, whether we work directly with other nurses regularly or not. Regardless of where you stand in the industry, it takes nurses to change the nursing culture. However, let’s look closer at some of the outside factors that commonly play a role:

Organizational Culture

When nurses are bullied by their superiors, it can affect how they treat other people, especially those lower on the totem pole. Nurses are often mistreated by physicians and doctors who have authority and take out their personal issues on their subordinates. And when doctors bully other doctors, nurses are indirectly affected, too. Organizational culture can impact the overall work environment and is often at least partly responsible for nurses eating their young.

Competitive Working Environment

Nurses work in an environment where not everyone has the same opportunities to succeed. While not every profession is like this, the predominance of women in the field makes it especially common in nursing. Nurses begin to hold grudges their coworkers when they feel that they have been treated unfairly or feel jealous about a fellow nurse’s position and bullying quickly becomes the result.

Criticism and Mentorship

A lot of times, experienced nurses show excessive criticism to junior nurses in an effort to “mentor” them. Negative mentorship is a cycle—the experienced nurse was once criticized and bullied, and now they’re competent and good at their job, which gives them the impression that they’ll benefit new nurses by treating them the same. Unfortunately, this mentor attitude does more harm than good, and unnecessary criticism can lead to personality damage, lack of confidence, and burnout in new nurses.

What’s the Harm? Consequences of Eating Our Young

Although we take oaths to be dedicated, compassionate, and caring toward our patients, too many nurses struggle to extend that oath to their fellow workers. I know what you might be thinking—most career paths have power struggles and plenty of people deal with bullying at some point in their lives; this isn’t news to the workforce. And that’s true. We see the consequences of bullying in all areas of life. But, although we may seem strong, nurses are no exception to the harmful effects of mistreatment by coworkers. 

Nurses are human, too; we have feelings. Like bullying negatively impacts the mental health of the average person, it’s just as hard on us nurses. And we deal with it all on top of putting our own needs aside to care for others. But, despite the harmful effects on a person’s well-being, eating our young ultimately leads to a shortage of nurses. A person can only take bullying for so long; plenty of nurses eventually quit their jobs because of it—around 60 percent, to be exact. If you’ve ever been bullied yourself, you likely wanted out of that situation as fast as possible, too. Quitting is understandable.

Not only does the mean girl culture of nursing foster a toxic work environment, but it also leads to inadequate healthcare for patients. As a nurse, your patients rely on our happiness and support. But, if you’re being bullied and feel frustrated with your job, it’s nearly impossible to focus on your patients and give them the care they deserve.

Putting a Stop to Eating Our Young

Although eating our young has been the dominant culture in nursing for far too long, it’s time for a change. Nurses have it tough enough as is; it’s crucial we lift our fellow nurses up instead of tearing one another down and stop allowing bullying to take place. Changing the entire system won’t happen overnight, but it is possible to break the cycle.

The Role of Nurses

Acknowledging and putting an end to bullying begins with nurses. We need to contribute to developing healthy working environments by improving poor working relationships, caring about our fellow nurses, and discouraging mistreatment amongst our coworkers.

How Nursing Programs Can Help

The bullying issue in the nursing field often begins at the source—nursing school. Academic implications for graduate nurses can help them gain a better understanding and build barriers against bullying. Nursing educators should teach up-and-coming nurses about the stressors and issues they’ll likely face during their careers. Not to mention, it should be required to teach nurses-to-be how to face tough situations with coworkers and how to manage bullying when the time comes.

Here are several ways educational programs can help end bullying between nurses:

• Educate nurses about poor professional interactions and equip them with the skills to combat such situations
• Encourage students to report abusive behaviors, whether against themselves or other nurses
• Teach cognitive behavioral skills through discussions, feedback, and role-playing to develop positive reactions to bullying
• Teach coping skills to fight stressors as a nurse

Organization Responsibilities

Fixing the issue isn’t only the responsibility of nurses and education programs. Organizations and employers also play a huge role in ending bullying, especially in hopes of running a successful establishment.

Nurse leaders, doctors, and other authority figures in an organization have the responsibility to set zero-tolerance policies in terms of workplace bullying. Here are several strategies that can authority figures can do to help implement higher standards:

• Report and addressing workplace bullying without any fear of retribution
• Discuss bullying and workplace violence openly with staff in meetings and one-on-one settings
• Provide nurses with conflict management training and encourage strategies that eliminate mean girl culture
• Recognize and take responsibility for bullying behaviors and their root causes in ourselves and colleagues
• Create a good working environment for nurses; ensure their requirements are considered and met whenever possible
• Discourage unnecessary workloads and burnout with adequate nurse staffing
• Cooperate, respect, and avoid mistreating fellow nurses
• Incorporate individual evaluations to eliminate competition and consider behavior toward others as performance indicators

Bottom Line

Being a nurse is not easy. The last thing any of us needs is additional stress put on by our coworkers, who can (and should) be our biggest support system. Not to mention, looking out for your coworkers—and them you—will benefit your patients and your day-to-day performance at one of the most mattering jobs in healthcare. Fortunately, there are avenues for breaking the cycle—by caring and supporting one another, today’s nurses can foster a future of nurses who may never eat their young again.