Early in my nursing career, I began to dread walking onto my unit. I experienced scrutiny, rumors, and unequal treatment that left me anxious before shifts. As a new nurse and a nurse of color, I felt that my work was examined more closely while the conduct of established colleagues went largely unquestioned. I raised concerns, but the lack of a meaningful response left me feeling increasingly isolated. The stress followed me home and ultimately contributed to my taking a leave of absence.
This is my experience. It is why I cannot hear “nurses eat their young” as a harmless expression.
We repeat the phrase to students as a warning and to new nurses after painful shifts, as though mistreatment were a passage into the profession. But when a nurse is repeatedly ridiculed, excluded, or targeted, it is bullying in its truest form. Giving it a familiar nickname does not make it acceptable.
Who Made This a Rite of Passage?
I have never seen “nurses eat their young” in the Nightingale Pledge. So where did the idea come from that a nurse must endure hostility to become a good nurse? At what point did we begin treating another nurse’s distress as evidence that they simply need to toughen up?
Bedside nursing faces a serious retention problem. Heavy workloads, burnout, and unsafe staffing all matter. But we must also ask what happens when a new nurse enters an already demanding environment and is met with ridicule instead of support. Why would we expect nurses to remain at the bedside if asking for help comes at a personal cost? We cannot address retention while treating bullying as a rite of passage. Research has found an association between workplace incivility and nurses’ intentions to leave.
When Asking Questions Has a Cost
Nursing depends on recognizing uncertainty and asking for help. We tell new nurses to speak up for patient safety, but our response to their questions teaches them whether speaking up is truly welcome.
A nurse should be able to say, “I haven’t done this before,” or “Can you check this with me?” without fearing embarrassment or gossip. That remains true for experienced nurses moving into an unfamiliar specialty. None of us stops learning.
When asking for help carries a social cost, we undermine the behavior we expect of safe clinicians.
It Is Time for Action
Leaders must take reports of mistreatment seriously, examine patterns of unequal treatment, and apply expectations fairly. Silence is a response, too—and it tells the person who spoke up that nothing will change.
As colleagues, we can answer questions without belittling the person who asked. We can correct practice respectfully, refuse to participate in gossip, and step in when someone is being targeted.
New nurses should not have to prove their resilience by enduring bullying. It is time to stop calling hostility a nursing tradition. Name the behavior, address it, and build a workplace where nurses can learn and patients can be cared for safely.
Lesline Rostick, RN, BSN
The Nursing Lens 
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