Although we as nurses pride ourselves on being a caring profession, it is somewhat paradoxical that much evidence exists to say otherwise when we are dealing with those in our own profession. Listening to the outstanding things student nurses are achieving and having to cope with at the recent Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Congress brought back memories for me from over 30 years ago, when I was a pupil nurse and then later as a student nurse, of the craving for the profession to still cannibalise their young remains. There is a name for this practice of devouring, chewing up and spitting out, and it is called horizontal violence. Horizontal violence occurs when interpersonal conflict among nurses occurs. In its rawest form, horizontal violence can take the form of psychological harassment and can be overt or covert, encompassing verbal abuse, threats, intimidation, humiliation, excessive criticism, innuendo, exclusion, disinterest, discouragement and the withholding of information. Evidence provided by some student nurses would suggest that they often experience this barbarianism on a daily basis while on their clinical placement or in the academic setting.
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