Theresa Brown, RN, Discusses Nurse-Focused Workplace Violence in Health Care

Cancer Nursing Today spoke with contributor Theresa Brown, RN, New York Times best-selling author of Healing: When a Nurse Becomes a Patient and The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients’ Lives, about workplace violence in health care and how it affects the largest sector of the health care workforce, nurses.

Theresa discusses being an early career nurse and observing a patient who became violent with her trainer. She recounts her shock at being told the violence was fine and an accepted part of the job.

In another story, she recalls a patient’s father threatening to “shoot up the place” if his daughter didn’t receive faster treatment, and she relays her incredulousness at the father not being removed by security after she reported him.

Finally, Theresa opines why health care workers experience more violence than any other public sector worker. She explains how low staffing levels can exacerbate patient irritability.