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Bullying in the guise of career advice

Locum Consultant Psychiatrist, Murray Royal Hospital, Muirhall Road, Perth PH2 7BH

Declaration of interest

Dr Alastair Hull was on the Executive of the Junior Members Forum, of the British Medical Association which organised a symposium on ‘Bullying, harassment and discrimination: still rife in the 21st Century NHS’ in 2003.

Hoosen & Callaghan (Psychiatric Bulletin, June 2004, 28, 225–227) identify many of the core features of bullying, including the common perception of the bullied individual that any action taken against the perpetrator will have a negative outcome. However, some forms of bullying are both less overt and more insidious.

Bullying in the form of career advice given either informally or formally during supervision, or the record of in-training assessment process, is harder to define but potentially just as damaging. It may affect performance, confidence and career progression. The authors identify supervision as supportive and indeed it can be, but it may also be one of the arenas of bullying. Senior clinicians naturally develop areas of expertise and bias toward certain activities, but awareness is needed of when advice moves beyond the appropriate (and perhaps directive) into an abuse of power, position or knowledge. For example, is it advice or bullying to suggest dropping union involvement from a curriculum vitae or to suggest dropping union activities altogether to secure senior posts in a chosen specialty? Essentially, the difference relates to whether the advice is sought and the consequences of not taking the advice.

While it is important to eliminate discrimination, harassment and bullying, it is also essential to differentiate bullying from legitimate and reasonable management of staff performance, and indeed from robust academic debate. However, given the negative effects of bullying is it now timely for the College to take an active role in eliminating it from the profession?

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This Article Full Text (PDF) Submit an eLetter Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via CrossRef Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Hull, A. Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by Hull, A.