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The above chart shows how many have personally experienced discrimination based on gender, age or race working as a nurse in the past year. (According to NurseWeek/AONE survey, 2001)

It began when he started touching Laura (not her real name), an OR nurse, on the shoulder and back. The harassment quickly escalated. While Laura washed her hands at the scrub sink, Nathan (not his real name), a surgical technician, began putting his hands into her pants pockets and whispering sexually explicit suggestions into her ear.

When Laura didn't respond to his advances, Nathan became verbally abusive. Surgeons requested that they not be put in the same OR together because Nathan's behavior was so disruptive. As a result of Laura's complaint to her supervisor, Nathan was "counseled."

But the harassment didn't stop. Instead, it became more aggressive and potentially violent. Nathan began leaving messages on Laura's home answering machine and following her. Sometimes, he hid in the parking lot and jumped out to scare her.

When Laura filed a formal sexual harassment complaint with the hospital, nothing happened. No investigation, no hearing, no disciplinary action. She finally quit. Nathan is still on the job.

Nurses like Laura who face sexual harassment should know there are laws designed to protect workers from discrimination and harassment based on sex, race, national origin, religion, age or disability. Harassment that is severe or so pervasive that it creates an abusive or hostile work environment is illegal. But, as in Laura's case, that doesn't always stop it from happening.

Persistent problem

Harassment and discrimination are "alive and well," according to Nilda Peragallo, DrPH, RN, FAAN, president of the National Association of Hispanic Nurses and interim chair/associate professor in the department of behavioral and community health at the University of Maryland School of Nursing in Baltimore. "I think people are more careful about how they say it or when they say it or where they say it, but I think it still happens," Peragallo said.

Although the 2000 U.S. Census revealed that Hispanics represent 12 percent of the population, Peragallo points out they make up only 2.2 percent of the nursing workforce. "In the educational system, it's implied that minority means 'less than,' " she said, "and such a student would not do well." She has found that assumptions are made that Hispanic students cannot speak English and often are directed to associate degree programs, resulting in fewer graduates from the baccalaureate (and higher) degree programs who are prepared to enter teaching and other leadership roles.

According to a NURSEWEEK/American Organization of Nurse Executives survey, 13 percent of nurses nationwide reported they personally experienced discrimination based on gender, age or race, working as a nurse and 19 percent experienced sexual harassment in the year before the survey. Twenty-seven percent of non-Caucasian nurses experienced discrimination during that same time period.

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