HR Pulse - Winter 2008 - (Page 33)

struck, or grabbed; or had an object thrown in the room or at me. Alarmingly, 10 percent of the female nurses personally experienced these more severe forms of abuse; none of the male nurses reported experiencing any of the behaviors. Another 10 percent of the female nurses and 6 percent of the male nurses witnessed the violence. The women were targeted signiﬁcantly more than the men, which demonstrates gender-based harassment. Nurses speciﬁed the frequency of experiencing and witnessing the unwelcomed behavior from never to daily and identiﬁed the severity of each behavior experienced and witnessed on a scale from not at all to extremely. Consider that if one female RN experiences even a couple of the 20 different behaviors weekly, in addition to her witnessing several of the 20 different behaviors weekly, and these behaviors are perceived as severe, the totality of her exposure to the behavior indicates that she may be a victim of harassment or discrimination. But wait; these behaviors aren’t sexual, so how can this be considered sexual harassment? The Civil Rights Act (amended in 1997) and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) hold that for behavior to rise to the level of illegal sexual harassment, it must be unwelcomed, severe, and/or pervasive enough to interfere with an employee’s ability to do their job and create a hostile work environment. The behavior also must be based on the individual’s sex or gender. Gender harassment is the term coined by Dr. Louise Fitzgerald and her colleagues (1995) for abusive behavior directed at a person or group of people because of their gender. This is true even if the behavior does not include sexual comments, language, or behavior, yet where the behavior is severe and/or pervasive enough to create a hostile work environment. Men and women’s perceptions about gender harassment vary with men less likely to consider the behaviors as harassment. However, because gender harassment may be severe and or pervasive enough to interfere with a woman’s ability to do her job, the behavior meets the legal standard for employment discrimination. Gender harassment, as a type of sexual harassment, is a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, according to the EEOC. With rare exception, physician bullying/gender harassment was done in front of other OR team members, such as the certiﬁed surgical technician (CST), nurse anesthetist, the RN circulating nurse, a physician’s assistant, or RN ﬁrst assistant, and even a medical device representative. The physician’s harassment, then, victimizes not only the direct target of his (both female and male RNs indicated that male physicians are the usual bully, though male nurses indicated that occasionally female physicians bullied as well) abusive behavior but victimizes all others in the OR who are forced, by their mere presence, to experience his abuse as well. Also present is the patient who may be anesthetized, sedated, or neither. The female RNs were much more likely than male RNs to indicate that experiencing and witnessing the bullying/harassing behaviors impacted their work. The women perceived physician gender harassment as a serious problem, a serious strain on daily work, reducing efﬁciency, decreasing morale, reducing job satisfaction, increasing errors, interfering with work relationships, diminishing teamwork, and contributing to staff turnover, absenteeism, and the nursing shortage. A signiﬁcant ﬁnding in the study was that male nurses claimed to be treated better and provided with job advantages because of their gender. The female nurses noted worse treatment and job disadvantages due to their gender. These are signiﬁcant discriminatory ﬁndings, especially considering that nursing is a female dominated career, yet men have the advantage. One of the women stated that there was a “good ole boys club of male bonding between the male nurses and male physicians.” Both female and male nurses discussed the difference in the way each gender is treated by male physicians with male nurses generally receiving friendlier treatment than their female colleagues as exempliﬁed in this woman’s statement, “…male nurses develop almost a ‘buddy’ relationship with male MDs…” A male RN agreed with her, “With the gender issue, I feel, as a male, I do seem to get treated with better respect.” Female RNs addressed gender differences in aggressive treatment by physicians to nurses, “I think male doctors and male nurses bond differently than male to female. I believe that some male doctors think they can intimidate some females easier.” Male nurses agreed. “What I’ve noticed throughout my career is male MDs don’t treat RNs the same. They’re somewhat more aggressive toward female RNs than male RNs,” said one of the survey respondents. And another male nurse said, “I’ve been in nursing 35 years, and I know I’m favored based on my male gender.” One of the most alarming ﬁndings of the research was the negligence displayed by management and administration to nurses’ complaints of bullying/harassment. Though many nurses indicated that their OR was much more respectful than it had been several years ago, the vast majority of nurses’ assertions focused on management’s failure to intervene on the bullying/harassment, or if they did intervene, the intervention was ineffective. Often nurses indicated that the abusive behavior was typical of a certain physician who was not held accountable by administration even when administrators or managers were informed of his behavior, often because of the physician’s 33 HR Pulse Winter 2008 >>

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of HR Pulse - Winter 2008

HR Pulse - Winter 2008 Contents Pulse Points Executive Director’s Letter President’s Message HR Leader Profile: Karmen Reid Advocacy is for Everyone A Case Study in Raising Voices Diversity Management Measuring What Matters Bullying as Gender Harassment Combat Workforce Changes Hardwiring Accountability Immigration Frustration HR and Education Making Exit Interviews Count Management Styles that Enhance Intrinsic Motivation Backup Care Fact or Fiction 10 Ways to Lose Your Best People Advertisers’ Index

HR Pulse - Winter 2008

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