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Hello, and welcome to episode 27 of The Nurse Trauma Healing Podcast. I’m Dr. Lorre Laws, your host, and today we’ll be discussing the public gaslighting and metaphorical flogging of nurses worldwide.  This is a sensitive topic and some radical views from the public will be shared to highlight toxic and often dangerous public perceptions through which many nurses are being verbally, emotionally, and often physically assaulted.

And, for the record, it’s not OK that nurses are being gaslighted, shamed, and publicly humiliated in their roles.

This is happening to me.

And it may be happening to you.

I am curious, as we all should be, about how these narratives are contributing to the uptick of nurse workplace violence.

As a matter of principle and respect for my profession and colleagues, I will not be silenced by those who are heaping shame, blame, implied threats, and inflicting violence on members of our global nursing community.

Not. On. My. Watch.

Here are some examples of the types of disparaging remarks that are being posted on my healing content in social media.  I know that this is part of being in the public eye and I’m certainly not taking it personal.  That said, it is important to shine a bright light on misinformation and examine how it may be placing nurses’ and other health professions’ safety at risk:

So practicing nurses are mass murderers now?! 😒🤯😡

Are we the the most trusted profession or public enemy #1?! 🚨🆘😡

In the U.S. each year, the Gallup poll conducts a massive survey to determine America’s “Most Trusted Profession”.  Nursing has been ranked thee most trusted profession for the past 22 years.  In Gallup’s most recent 2024 survey the trustworthiness of public opinion for all professions dropped, yet nursing still persists as the most trusted profession.

And yet, despite nursing being a highly trusted, respected, and mission critical profession, nurses are experiencing workplace violence.

Every. Single. Day.

I recently presented at the National League of Nurses Conference in San Antonio, TX.  There were just over 200 nurses who attended my presentation.  I introduced the concept of nurse-specific traumatization and the various classifications by surveying the nurses.

When I asked 200 nurses to raise their hand if they, like me, have ever been:

-hit
-kicked
-punched
-bruised
-battered
-scratched
-hair pulled
-spat upon
-had bodily excrement thrown on them

I was shocked by the 95% prevalence of AVOIDABLE nurse-specific traumatization in the workplace.

190 of 200 nurses surveyed report being hit, kicked, punched, bruised, battered, scratched, had their hair pulled, been spat upon, or had bodily excrement thrown on them.

This. Is. Not. O.K.

And I made a promise to the 200 nurses who attended my presentation.  I promised to continue to do my part to bring awareness and healing to nurses who are traumatized in their roles, including workplace violence.  I will not be silent.

How can it be that the nation’s most trusted profession is being met with such violence?

I started investigating.  

The American Nurses Association recently published the ANA, ENA & ACEP Sound the Alarm on Violence Against Nurses.  Here’s a few excerpts from that article:

“ . . . to highlight the need for passage of legislation designed to mitigate the frequency and severity of workplace violence in health care.

During a briefing for congressional staffers, the leaders of the three organizations used data and storytelling to build an understanding of the impact this ongoing crisis has on health care workers and patients – a situation that is particularly dire in emergency departments which serve as the health care safety net and are open 24/7.

Among the data highlighted:

  • The rate of serious injuries related to workplace violence is six-times higher for hospital workers compared to all other private sector employees in the United States.👀
  • According to ANA data, out of all nurses who experience workplace violence, as many as 80 percent of their cases go unreported.🆘
  • Of the nearly 500 members who responded to an ENA survey this year, 56 percent said they had been either verbally assaulted, threatened with violence, or physically assaulted in the previous 30 days. 😡
  • A Press-Ganey analysis found two nurses were assaulted every hour.🚨

The leaders also discussed the importance of two bills pending in Congress – The Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act and the Safety From Violence for Healthcare Employees Act – that, respectively, would bolster workplace violence mitigation efforts and make it a federal crime to assault a hospital employee.

“Violence against health care professionals – the very people who are entrusted to care for the sick and encourage healing – is absolutely unacceptable and reprehensible. Passage of federal legislation to protect our nurses and other health care workers and keep them safe is something the American Nurses Association will never stop advocating for and it is long overdue,” said ANA President Jennifer Mensik Kennedy, PhD, MBA, RN, NEA, FAAN.

It’s the employer’s responsibility to ensure workplace safety and security, but sadly in many health care settings nurses are still experiencing violence at alarming rates. Too many of my fellow nurses’ lives have already been lost to workplace violence. We need to act now to break the deadly cycle of violence against health care professionals. And these bills that we are currently supporting in Congress is a step in that direction,” said Kennedy.

ACEP President Aisha Terry, MD, MPH, FACEP states “We are vulnerable to threats and violence, and we are encouraged by those who join our call for stronger protections. Fortunately, these bills can help protect health care workers on the job and take important steps to prevent incidents from happening in the first place.”

Welp.  Now I know why 190 of 200 nurses in my audience raised their hand when asked about their workplace violence history.  Because they were in a safe, relatively anonymous space, the 56% who likely reported the violence against them and the 80% who did not report were able to be seen, nurtured, and provided with mission critical resources.

How Nurses Are Being Gaslighted and Verbally Mistreated DESPITE Being the Most Trusted Profession

As I reflected on the myriad of factors contributing to nurse workplace violence, such as (a) unpredictable behaviors of patients and families who are often under emotional stress, as well as (b) organizational and systemic factors such as high-stress work environments, staff shortages, lack of organizational policies and staff training, overcrowding, long wait times, inflexible visiting hours, and lack of information . . .it became clear that workplace violence is a largely avoidable form of nurse-specific trauma that is due to the broken healthcare system.

But there’s another factor that no one is really talking about, and it’s one that I’m experiencing first-hand.  Nurses are being blamed and gaslighted by the public sector for everything and anything connected to the recent global pandemic.  I never saw or experienced blaming, shaming, gaslighting, and verbal mistreatment until I started to bring my research to the public forum. 

Here I am, just one nurse, standing up and doing my part to address a global nursing crisis and help my colleagues to heal from all they’ve endured.

As a reluctant public figure, I have been shocked to experience public shaming for everything and anything connected to the global pandemic.  After doing an informal thematic analysis around the comments by the general public, three themes emerged:

UNTRUTH #1.   Nurses deserve to suffer.  A portion of the public sector is happy that nurses are burned out and outright traumatized.  Nurses deserve it because we didn’t stand up during the pandemic ?!!.  It’s our fault that there’s controversy, death, and public policies that our license REQUIRES us to enforce.

UNTRUTH #2.  Nurses are to blame and should be shamed.  I personally have been told “shame on you” at least 50 times in public forums for bringing awareness and healing to nurse-specific traumatization.  “You [all nurses] get what you deserve” , “You reap what you sow”, and “You made your bed, now you have to lay in it” are frequent gaslighting themes.  AS IF any one nurse, such as you or me, could do a darn thing about all that occurred in the wake of a global pandemic.

UNTRUTH #3.  Nurses should just suck it up buttercup.  I cannot even count how many times people commented that nurses should just suck it up.  If you get hit or assaulted at work, then it must be your fault.  If you are assigned an unsafe number of patients, then it’s your job to deal with it.  How is it that the nurses, the literal lynch pins of any health system, are being subjected to a blame the victim public persecution? 

Is nursing the most trusted profession or public enemy #1?  And how is misinformation regarding our role and scope of practice contributing to nurse-specific traumatization in the form of workplace violence?

In short, a segment of the general population is engaging in a culture of blame, engaging in often violent blame-the-victim behaviors, and outright gaslighting . . .all of which constitute yet ANOTHER layer of nurse-specific trauma exposure.

While there are a plethora of research studies examining nurse workplace violence, none of the studies that I reviewed examined the impact of misinformation regarding the nurses’ role during the pandemic and its impact upon (a) increased rates of workplace violence and (b) the seven-point drop in the Gallup poll regarding trustworthiness.

Anecdotally speaking, I can attest to the verbal mistreatment of nurses regarding their alleged role and alleged involvement in and responsibility for the global pandemic [UNTRUTH].  Clearly, segments of the general population do not understand what the nursing profession and nurses actually do, how nurses are licensed and their scope of practice, nor how utterly disempowered most are in their roles secondary to the systemic and historical oppression of nurses over the past two centuries.

While I don’t have the answer to how public perception of nurses and their roles contributes to the workplace violence global epidemic, I do know and have experienced the blaming, shaming, and incivilities.  Yet another layer of nurse-specific traumatization – this time being inflicted by a segment of the general population.

If you’re curious to learn more, please purchase my upcoming book that discusses these topics and offers a four-step, evidence based pathway to healing and full recovery.  It’s time to end workplace violence, nurse-specific traumatization and enter a new paradigm – what I call Nursing 2.0.  The Nurse Safety & Professional Wellbeing Edition.  

https://drlorrelaws.com/book/

If you or someone you know has been affected by nurse-specific traumatization, please seek support immediately.  I and my team are standing by to support nurses.  Please join my Nurse Trauma Masterclass or schedule a personal call with me to explore the best healing options for you.

Until next time, thank you for all that you are and do.  

I see you.

I feel you.

I hear you.

And I am here for you.

From my healer’s heart to yours,

Dr. Lorre 💕

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