When Nurses Hurt Nurses: Why Bullying New Nurses Threatens Care
What one nurse did for protection from her own coworkers.
Imagine being so harassed at work that you change the way you look—not because you want to, but because it feels like the only way to be safe.
That’s what one new nurse had to do. She cut her hair down to a half inch—not as a style, not as a choice, but as protection from her own coworkers.
After all this time, I still can’t stop thinking about her. Today I’m going to share her story. If this is what we’re asking the next generation of nurses to sacrifice, what does that mean for the future of healthcare?
Let’s dive in!
The Clippings on the Floor: Visible Evidence Hidden Harm
I remember walking into the break room and seeing the were strands of hair all over the floor. To an average person, they would’ve dismissed it as a haircut. To me, it was a little clearer. Something was very wrong here.
That day, a new nurse had entered the staff room, and she had shaved her hair down to just half an inch. Not bald, and not a daring new look. But her hair was not short enough to lose all the features her workmates had made her the target of.
Civility was a scarce resource on the nursing floor, and this was not a new observation. Other new nurses had also tried to make themselves smaller, or quieter. Many of them avoided the break room and ate lunch in their cars alone.
There was a few people who saw the hair on the floor and would later call it courageous, while the rest of us were muted. But the remnants of her shaved hair laying on the floor, left a far stronger impact on me- showing all the things she had to lose, just to be left alone.
“…she cut away something no one should ever have to lose: the right to simply exist as herself.”
Why She Cut Her Hair: Survival, Not Style
Because this wasn’t freedom. It wasn’t empowerment. It was survival. In healthcare—a place meant for healing—she was the one who had been wounded. And to keep going, to keep being the good nurse she already was, she cut away something no one should ever have to lose: the right to simply exist as herself.
Think about that. A nurse—trained to care for the sick, to hold space for pain, to walk into chaos with steady hands—had to mutilate her own sense of self just to be safe enough to do her job.
If you want to understand the quiet cost of nurse-on-nurse hostility, just look at that floor. Look at what gets left behind.
The Real Enemy: Nurse-on-Nurse Harassment
And here’s the truth that cuts deeper: this wasn’t patients hurting her. It wasn’t the weight of the job. It was her own coworkers. Seasoned nurses. The very people who should have been her protectors.
A new nurse being harrassed by a seasoned nurse.
How We Got Here: From Healing to Hazing
I keep asking myself—how did we get here? When did the profession of Florence Nightingale and Clara Barton become a profession where hazing is accepted as tradition? Where cruelty is brushed off as “toughening them up”? Where we forget that every single one of us was new once—scared, overwhelmed, and raw?
Nurse bullying cannot be the price of entry. It cannot be the tradition we pass down.
The Cost of Silence: Who Will Care for the Patients?
Older nurses—hear this: if you are breaking down the very people stepping into this profession, who will remain? If cruelty is the initiation, if hazing is the culture, who will be left at the bedside in five years? In ten?
Who will care for your family when they are sick? Who will hold your hand when it’s your turn in the hospital bed? Who will carry the weight of a system already cracking if every new nurse is driven out before they even begin?
Because this isn’t just about one haircut. It’s about the way we normalize harm until someone disappears under it. It’s about the silence of break rooms, the comments muttered under breath, the looks that linger too long. It’s about the clippings left on the floor—not just hair, but fragments of belonging, dignity, and hope.
This cannot be the price of entry. It cannot be the tradition we pass down.
The floor cannot keep collecting the clippings of what new nurses sacrifice just to belong.
The cutting has to stop.
And here is where it begins to stop: with you.
If you are a seasoned nurse, remember your first year. Offer guidance instead of scorn.
If you see cruelty, don’t be silent—silence is complicity.
If you lead a unit, set the tone: zero tolerance for hazing.
Because if we want a future where patients are cared for with skill and heart, then we must care for the caregivers now.
The cutting ends when we choose differently.
And if you are a new nurse reading this—you are not weak, and you are not alone.
💬 Now I’d love to hear from you:
👉 What’s one thing you wish senior nurses understood about being new?
👉 Share a moment when someone supported you instead of pushing you down—or tell us how you’ll be that support for someone else.
To help keep learning this week, I am sharing here the insight kit for the week. There are several activities to choose from. Keep learning Here is the link https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xQTu0qHKBfJ3ul3sp7IjD-wU4dAYkhaPd4tPIv5beQw/edit?usp=sharing
Share it in the comments—you never know who your words might help.
You CAN do this!
💬 Join the Conversation:
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Share your stories in the comments or reach out—I’d love to hear from you.
What’s one thing you wish senior nurses understood about being new?
Share a moment when someone supported you instead of pushing you down—or tell us how you’ll be that support for someone else.
Any tips or stories you'd like to share with your fellow new nurses?
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