Horizontal Violence: Stopping the Cycle

According to the Gallup Poll, Nurses are still the #1 most trusted professionals. This is most likely due to the long history of self-sacrifice, understanding, acceptance, and tenderness that Nursing has.  Unfortunately, what many people do not realize is that cliques, gossip, judgment, and coldness are also found between coworkers within the healthcare setting.  This is known as horizontal violence.  Nurses are often very adept at hiding these problems from patients and their families, but the effects this violence (or bullying) has on individual nurses and the overall hospital morale are very real.  

 Bullying between nurses deflects our attention from our true purpose (serving others, caring, bringing comfort) and draws it to negative thoughts, feelings and actions that are either truly unimportant, or are simply wrong.  The problem is that many nurses, especially nursing students or new nurses, begin to think that it is normal to be pushed around or ignored and so begin to accept it as normal.  This is so heartbreaking! We enter the nursing profession with grand ideas of the impact and change we will have on patient's lives... wonderful thoughts of how caring and loving we will be.  But then we let negative experiences and frustrations with our facility or other nurses affect the way we treat each other and our patients, and this becomes our new normal.  You must be careful of what you tolerate, for what you tolerate you will soon accept, and what you accept will eventually become a part of you.

As a future nurse, I am dedicating my life to showing love, compassion, and understanding to those that are physically, mentally, or emotionally distressed.  How can I and other nurses commit our lives to treating others in this caring, and in my opinion, Christ-like manner when we cannot even treat other nurses with love? It is my responsibility to show the same respect and kindness to other nurses that I would expect from them.  True change can only happen if most, if not all, nurses commit to truly creating within our professional circles the environment of compassion, respect, and care that we are known for publically.  But it must begin with individual change.  It must begin with me.  We have all heard it a million times, but Jesus truly did say it best when He said, "So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 7:12, ESV).   

Nurses are held to an extreme standard of reliability, trustworthiness, and kindness.  How can we uphold this standard and be what people believe us to be if we cannot even love and trust one another?  We as nurses encounter people at their darkest times... the times in which the most love and compassion is needed.  In order to show this love to our patients, we must be able to love each other as well.  "Let all that ye do be done in love" (1 Corinthians 16:14, NASB).  Be the change you want to see.  Keep nursing as the #1 most trusted profession.  Do not get caught up in the violence... do not allow it to become "normal"... be careful of what you tolerate, for what you tolerate you will soon accept, and what you accept will eventually become a part of you.

Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of My hands

"Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?  Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.  Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of My hands"  Isaiah 49: 15-16

  

A mother never forgets or ceases to have compassion on her child.  A mother's love and devotion is like no other.  What mother ever forgets about her child? But even if something that impossible did happen, still God would not forget me.  God says that He has written His salvation onto our hearts.... But He has written us onto His hands! God has permanently engraved us onto Himself.  The same hands that were torn through by massive spikes... the same hands whose tendons were ripping as they held Jesus' body onto the cross... the same hands that gushed blood as Jesus' physical life poured out of Him... these same hands have yours and my names written on them.  Our names are right there, permanently engraved over Jesus' scars.  Not as a reminder of what our sin did to Jesus, but as a promise of the unfailing, never ending, unspeakable love that God has for us.  It is a continuous reminder. 

I often write notes on my hands of things I need to remember, but my name is engraved on God's hands... engraved.  Permanently.  I cannot begin to understand that... I cannot even fathom it.  How can I dare to think that God has at times forgotten me, when my name is branded onto His hands?  How foolish and petty of me! You cannot forget something that is continually before your eyes and is physically engraved upon your body...

"Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of My Hands". I am in awe...

Prioritize Life

Priorities.  The idea is drilled into your head from the minute you enter your freshman year of college.  We all seem to think that, "No worries! I'll get my priorities figured out soon enough!".  But the problem is that we generally think of priorities simply as academic.  Our relationship with God and with others is usually not impressed onto our minds as things to prioritize.  Being in nursing school has completely shaken my world and changed so many things that I before believed were important.  While papers, tests, study groups, chores, and church commitments are all extremely important and should never be overlooked, they are not the beautiful gifts that make life worth living.   

I've come to realize that the beauty lies within our interactions and relationships with others and God.  It's the times in nursing school when I'm simply holding an elderly lady's frail hand, when I'm reading a book to a little boy in the hospital, when I am comforting the family of one of my patients... those are the times that make life worth living!  To look into the face of a brand new baby girl, and gently wrap her small and beautiful form into my arms as she takes her first breaths... these are the moments to be prioritized.   

Yes, study for the tests.  Yes, read the books.  Yes, apply yourself.  But do not so completely lose yourself within the technicalities of life that you miss life itself.  Your priorities become moments, and the moments become memories.  What memories will you have?