Introduction
Nurses experience or come across a variety of contemporary issues at the workplace. To find out more on these contemporary issues, I decided to interview a nursing administrator at one of the local hospitals in my home town. There were specifically two areas of nursing that I wanted to find out more on from this interview. The first was on interdisciplinary collaborations between nurses and some of the lessons that nurses learn from such an endeavor. My other area of interest was on the roles of nurses when it comes to preventing workplace bullying or lateral violence.
The interview took place on a Saturday afternoon after the nursing administrator had finished her morning shift. The interview was conducted at the hospital’s cafeteria as it was an open place that seemed suitable for the interview. My interviewee was very co-operative and answered all my questions clearly and accurately.
The other important lesson learnt from working in interdisciplinary teams is that mastery of process and interpersonal skills is very crucial. Interdisciplinary teams are composed of various team members and for effective and successful collaboration between these team members, each of them must master both organizational as well as interpersonal skills (Hall & Weaver, 2001). As the nurse administrator told me, some of the interpersonal skills she found most useful in such a setting include “flexibility, assertiveness, self-confidence, cooperation, patience and willingness to listen to others, ability to tolerate ambiguity and clinical competence”. In addition, the administrator exclaimed that every member of the interdisciplinary “must convey an internal value that puts the needs of the patient above those of individual members”.
The other major lesson from working with interdisciplinary teams that my interviewee emphasized on was that one must learn to value and at the same time manage diversity (Leipzig, et. al., 2002). This is particularly in regards to gender differences. The interviewee mentioned that during her practice, she has noticed that “women tend to be relationship-oriented while men are task-oriented when it comes to patient care.” This might seem to be an unfair stereotypical deduction, but it should not be ignored. In a nursing care setting, both aspects are of importance as my interviewee put it, working in a team involves assigning every member a role in patient care that is in accordance with their strengths and characteristics and such issues of must therefore be taken into consideration. Hence, an interdisciplinary team setting would require men to be assigned task roles while women are assigned relationship roles since this is mostly where they are likely to excel.
Workplace bullying and lateral violence are other issues that may be experienced at the work place, and I wanted to find out from my interviewee the role of a nurse in preventing such incidences. I also wanted to know the various forms of bullying and lateral violence that may happen at the work place. My interviewee told me that when she started practicing, she had, in fact, been a victim of lateral violence. Some of the most common forms of these behaviors include, name calling, intimidation, gossiping, unfair assignments, making faces at fellow nurse, sabotage of others work, fault finding, invading others privacy and exclusion (Hutchinson et. al., 2006).
However, according to my interviewee the nurse can play a huge role in ensuring that such incidences do not occur at the workplace. The first of these roles is “not judging others based on unsubstantiated information” (Hutchinson et. al., 2006). In addition, a nurse holding a higher position has the role of using that position to guide and mentor others and not use the position to oppress others. This is because there are some nurses who because of their higher position or status bully their fellow nurses at lower positions or exert lateral violence towards them.
Any nurse who comes across incidence of bullying and lateral violence has the role of reporting these incidence to the relevant higher authorities such as the hospital management. Nursing heads in hospitals also have the role of providing support services as well as resources for new nurses who have just been assigned to the center or unit in order to ease their transition and reduce chances of bullying and lateral violence (Stanley et. al.., 2005).
In conclusion, this interview was eye opening, and I learnt a lot. I leant about working in interdisciplinary teams and some of the most important lessons that are deductible from such endeavors. I was also able to learn about the role of the nurse in preventing bullying and lateral violence incidences at the work place.
References
Hall, P., & Weaver, L. (2001). Interdisciplinary education and teamwork: a long and winding road. Medical education, 35(9), 867-875.
Leipzig, R. M., Hyer, K., Ek, K., Wallenstein, S., Vezina, M. L., Fairchild, S., & Howe, J. L. (2002). Attitudes toward working on interdisciplinary healthcare teams: a comparison by discipline. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society,50(6), 1141-1148.
Hutchinson, M., Vickers, M., Jackson, D., & Wilkes, L. (2006). Workplace bullying in nursing: towards a more critical organizational perspective. Nursing inquiry, 13(2), 118-126.
Stanley, K. M., Martin, M. M., Michel, Y., Welton, J. M., & Nemeth, L. S. (2007). Examining lateral violence in the nursing workforce. Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 28(11), 1247-1265.
