Medical Whistleblower’s Canary Notes

Medical Whistleblower

February 2006

Tim Field died of cancer in January 2006

aged 53, but he will never be forgotten by those who

gained so much from his advocacy regarding Bullying

in the Workplace. He was born in the UK and

worked in computer science for nineteen years. He

was himself a target of Bullying in the Workplace. In

1996 he founded the UK National Workplace Bully-

ing Advice Line. He wrote and published a book

“Bully in Sight” based on his own experiences and

impressions of calls from over 10,000 cases world-

wide to his advice line. The book tells about how to predict, resist, challenge and

combat workplace bullying. The first part of the book seeks to define what a bully

is and the second part offers suggestions to the challenges and how to combat

workplace bullying. Tim Field stresses that Workplace Bullying is very serious and

can have long term negative effects on the targets of the Bully. Tim Field brought

attention to the problem of school playground bullying and its serious effects on

children. He pointed out in his web site that long term Bullying can cause psychiat-

ric injury and can lead to Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and even suicide.

Tim Field — Anti-bullying Advocate

Do you recognize these bullying behaviors?

2

What is the profile of a typical bully?

3

What are bullying’s typical outcomes?

3

The Target of the Bully 4

The Problem of Workplace Violence

4

Inside this issue:

Volume 1 Issue 2

What is workplace

bullying?

“Workplace bully-

ing is persistent,

unwelcome,

intrusive

behavior of one or

more individuals

whose actions pre-

vent others from

fulfilling their

duties.”

Tim Field

Whistleblowers Australia

have a web-site at

http://www.uow.edu.au/

arts/sts/bmartin/dissent/

Falsely accused someone of "errors" not actually made

Stared, glared, was nonverbally intimidating and was clearly showing hostility

Discounted the person's thoughts or feelings ("oh, that's silly") in meetings

Used the "silent treatment" to "ice out" & separate from others

Exhibited presumably uncontrollable mood swings in front of the group

Made up own rules on the fly that even she/he did not follow

Disregarded satisfactory or exemplary quality of completed work despite evidence

Harshly and constantly criticized having a different 'standard' for the Target

Started, or failed to stop, destructive rumors or gossip about the person

Encouraged people to turn against the person being tormented

Singled out and isolated one person from co-workers, either socially or physically

Publicly displayed "gross," undignified, but not illegal, behavior

Yelled, screamed, threw tantrums in front of others to humiliate a person

Stole credit for work done by others

Abused the evaluation process by lying about the person's performance

Criticized "insubordinate" for failing to follow arbitrary commands

Used confidential information about a person to humiliate privately or publicly

Retaliated against the person after a complaint was filed

Made verbal put-downs/insults based on gender, race, accent or language, disability

Assigned undesirable work as punishment

Made undoable demands-- workload, deadlines, duties -- for person singled out

Launched a baseless campaign to oust the person and not stopped by the employer

Encouraged the person to quit or transfer rather than to face more mistreatment

Sabotaged the person's contribution to a team goal and reward

Ensured failure of person's project by not performing required tasks: signoffs, taking calls,

working with collaborators

Public screaming, Illegal verbal tactics

Post-complaint retaliation

Denied training or time to succeed in new job

Sabotaging a person's contribution

Timing mistreatment to correspond with medical or psych

vulnerability

Withholding resources for success, then blaming the target

Name calling

Uninvited invasion of office space & scrutiny of e-mails

Engaging in physical sexual aggression

Threatening job loss, punishment

Interfering with paycheck or earned benefits

Do you recognize these Bullying Behaviors?

Page 2 Medical Whist leblower ’s Canary Notes Volume 1 Issue 2

“Bully targets at work are not always the

introverted loners of the

playground. They are often bright,

social people.

They are well-

liked and respected, good

at their jobs and typically have a

strong sense of ethics and justice.”

RADHA CHITALE

ABC News

The Workplace Bullying

Institute (USA) is a non-

profit organization founded

and coordinated by Drs.

Gary and Ruth Namie. Go

to http://

www.bullyinginstitute.org/

Case consultation available by

Drs. Namie (360) 656-6630

Admin@bullyinginstitute.org

namie@bullyinginstitute.org

Tim Field: 90% of the cases reported to the UK National Workplace Bullying

Advice Line involve a serial bully who can be recognized by their behavior profile

which includes compulsive lying, a Jekyll and Hyde nature, an unusually high verbal

facility, charm and a considerable capacity to deceive, an arrested level of emotional

development, and a compulsive need to control. The serial bully rarely commits a

physical assault or an arrestable offence, preferring instead to remain within the realms

of psychological violence and non-arrestable offences.

Tim Field: In the majority of cases, the target of bullying is eliminated through

forced resignation, unfair dismissal, or early or ill- health retirement whilst the bully is

promoted. After a short interval of between 2-14 days, the bully selects another target

and the cycle restarts. Sometimes another target is selected before the current target is

eliminated.

What is the profile of the typical bully?

What are Bullying’s typical outcomes?

Page 3 Medical Whist leblower ’s Canary Notes Volume 1 Issue 2

“The purpose of

bullying is to hide

the inadequacy of

the bully and has

nothing to do with

"management" or

the achievement

of tasks. Bullies

project their

inadequacies onto

others to distract

and divert

attention away

from the

inadequacies”

Tim Field

How often does Bullying occur?

Tim Field: Surveys of bullying in the UK indicate that between 12-50% of the

workforce experience bullying. Statistics from the UK National Workplace Bullying

Advice Line reveal that around 20% of cases are from the education sector, 12% are

from healthcare, 10% are from social services, and around 6% from the voluntary /

charity / not-for-profit sector. After that, calls come from all sectors both public and

private, with finance, media, police, postal workers and other government employees

featuring prominently. The workers in the caring professions (such as medical pro-

fessionals) were on the top of the list of bullied workers.

Dr. Janet Parker

P.O. Box C

Lawrence, KS 66044

We are on the Web!

MedicalWhistleblower.googlepages.com

Bureau of Justice Statistics 2001

1.7 million workers are injured each year during workplace assaults

Violent workplace incidents account for 18% of all violent crimes

Each year there are 807 workplace homicides

Hospital Workers are at High Risk

Hospital Risk Factors: Long waits for service, Overcrowding, Lack of staff training

and policies for dealing with potentially volatile patients, Drug and Alcohol Abuse,

Inadequate security, Working Alone

Typology of Violence:

I. Criminal Intent - 85% of workplace homicides fall into this category

II: Customer/client - 3% of all workplace homicides.

III: Worker-on-worker - 7% of all workplace homicides.

IV: Personal relationship - 5% of all workplace homicides.

The Problem of Workplace Violence

Phone: 360-809-3058

Fax: None

E-mail: MedicalWhistleblower@gmail.com

Supporting the Emotional Health of all Whistleblowers

and their friends, supporters and families.

Medical Whistleblower

“Bullying is psychological

violence”

Says Gary

Namie, director

of the Work-place Bullying

Institute (WBI)

in Bellingham,

Washington,

and author of

“The Bully at

Work.”

The Target of the Bully:

By standard criteria of job performance, the target is at

least average, probably above average.

Rumors and gossip circulate about the target’s misdeeds:

“Did you hear what she did last week?”

The target is not invited to meetings or voted onto

committees, is excluded or excludes self.

Those involved in bullying behavior share the conviction that the

target needs some kind of formal punishment, “to be taught a

lesson.”

They use emotion-laden, defamatory rhetoric about the target in

oral and written communications. The target is seen as personally

abhorrent, with no redeeming qualities; stigmatizing, exclusionary

labels are applied.

The bullies use formal expressions of collective negative sentiment

toward the target, like a vote of censure, signatures on a petition,

meeting to discuss what to do about the target.