Every nurse has heard the term “horizontal hostility.” Sometimes it’s referred to as “nurse-to-nurse hostility,” “lateral violence,” or even “nurses eating their young.” Regardless, it’s a troubling issue that continues to plague the nursing profession on a daily basis.

Horizontal hostility includes overt examples (e.g., name-calling, bickering, backstabbing, and gossip) and covert examples (e.g., sarcasm, sabotage, isolation, and refusing to work with someone). Getting education on the issue is the first step in putting an end to it.

But how else can it be stopped? Best-selling author Kathleen Bartholomew, RN, MN, offers the following tips in her book Ending Nurse-to-Nurse Hostility: Why Nurses Eat Their Young and Each Other:

• Because hierarchy diminishes two-way communication and power, leveling the playing field will decrease hostility
• Because powerlessness is a result of an unequal, finite amount of power, empowering nurses and encouraging voice will decrease hostility
• Because silence and closed systems perpetuate horizontal hostility, creating an environment where staff feel free to communicate (i.e., to speak their truth) is critical
• Because horizontal hostility is insidious, bringing the subject out into the open will decrease its prevalence
• Because decreased self esteem is a common theme in oppressed groups (and because it maintains the status quo), any intervention directed at increasing self esteem will decrease hostility
• Because pressure has increased in the workplace and we have adapted to a great deal of unconscious stressors, stopping to acknowledge these pressures will increase awareness and decrease frustration/hostility
• Because a faster pace of work does not allow us time to see the consequences of our actions, reflective practice will allow us an opportunity to see how our behaviors affect each other and decrease hostility
• Because a belief system of subordination accompanies oppression, illuminating these beliefs and creating a new archetype will foster healthy work attitudes
• Because the lack of a social support network increases aggression, increasing social support networks will decrease psychological stress

The distance from the drama, or the emotional issues of our workplace, Bartholomew writes, gives us a new perspective empowered with solutions.