health care. A man
may express anger by
throwing something,
whereas a woman
may quietly backstab
a colleague to peers. If
you feel your facility
may be suffering from
incivility, it's critical to
diagnose and solve it
promptly or it could
cost you.
Here are 10 tips to
help your team start
acting civil to one another.
1. Identify the problem
If you suspect you may have an incivility issue, a great first step is to
conduct a written or online anonymous survey of your staff. You will
quickly identify the issues. I have created my own with Survey
Monkey, but it may be wisest to work with your in-house or contract
IT staff to build a secure one. You can adapt the Nursing and Civility
Scale for these purposes; you don't need to use a branded tool to get
the information you need.
There is a great starter questionnaire in Shelley Cohen's excellent
"From Sheep to Lion: Confronting Nurse Bullying," in the July 2014
Nursing Management. She suggests asking staffers how frequently
incidences like these occur:
• A coworker yelled at me in front of others.
N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 9 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y. N E T • 4 7
CYCLE OF ABUSE Staff members who were once bullied often take out their frus-
trations on junior colleagues.
