Bullying, Harassment, and Undermining Behaviour in Cardiothoracic Surgery in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Background: Bullying, harassment, and undermining behaviour has a profound detrimental effect on the multi-professional team, patient safety, and clinical outcomes. Bullying creates a poor working and training environment , increasing stress, damaging confidence, and impairing wellbeing. We sought to characterize the prevalence and nature of bullying, harassment and undermining within cardiothoracic surgery in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland.

Methods: A 21-question survey was sent to all members of the Society for Cardiothoracic Surgery (SCTS) in Great Britain & Ireland. Participants were asked about baseline demographics and their experience of bullying as victim or witness.

Results: The survey was sent to 1,326 SCTS members and there were 278 responses (21.0%). Most respondents were physicians (75.2%, n = 209) and most were male (58.3%, n = 162). The majority (79.1%, n = 220) had experienced or witnessed bullying in some form within the last three years (or appointment as a professional). This was experienced directly the majority of respondents (62%, n=136) and a large minority (23.6%, n = 52) had witnessed it in their workplace CONCLUSIONS: Bullying is observed or experienced by a concerning proportion of healthcare professionals working in cardiothoracic surgery. Ongoing initiatives to reduce this within British and Irish healthcare need to be strengthened to improve prevention, reporting and investigation, and support for victims and perpetrators to keep workplaces safe for teams and individuals and to facilitate the delivery of the best possible patient care.