Definition of “workplace bullying” and examples for newly graduated nurse According to the “Washington State Department of Labor & Industries” (2008), workplace bullying refers to “the repeated, unreasonable actions of individuals (or groups) directed towards employee or employees, intended to intimidate, and by so doing, create a risk to the health and safety of the employee (s)” (Page 1). This act, in most cases, involves a “power gradient” with the one bullying being in a position of higher authority as compared with the one who is bullied. This implies that workplace bullying is an act which involves “abuse of power”. Bullying encompasses “behaviors that intimidate, degrades, offends or humiliates – often in front of others” (Quine, 2001 Pg 73). Bullying in the nursing workplace, in this case, causes the one bullied to have a feeling of defenselessness and takes away the nurses’ right to dignity at his or her workplace. There are several examples of bullying at the nursing workplace. New graduate nurses are common victims of bullying. The examples of bullying they may encounter at their place of work may include being shouted at or yelled at by other nurses who have been at the workplace for a longer time. Another example is being undermined by other staff members because of their being new in the profession and the place and this can be through having their questions ignored or their comments devalued. More so, following their being new in the workplace and the profession, the new graduate nurses may be severely criticized and excluded from discussions instead of being guided. “ Differentiating between horizontal and vertical workplace violence” Vertical workplace violence refers to the violence that is exercised on people based on hierarchical relationships while horizontal violence refers to interpersonal conflicts. In nursing, this sector has done somehow well regarding dealing with vertical violence. But on the other hand, it has not done very well concerning handling horizontal violence. In some instances, “the lines between horizontal and vertical violence get blurred and issues may seem to be vertical violence that occurs between male and female, generations, job titles, etc” (“Hawaii Nurses Association”, 2008 Par. 1). Horizontal violence is common in the nursing workplace. According to Duffy (1995), “horizontal violence is a hostile and aggressive behavior by an individual or group members toward another member or group of members of the larger group” (Page 10). This kind of violence is, in most cases, not physical but involves inflicting to another person or people “psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually damaging behaviors, which can have devastating long-term effects on the recipient” (Freire, 1972 Pg 5). “ How the joint commission has addressed workplace intimidation” The Joint Commission is “an independent, non-profit organization that accredits health care organizations and programs” (Yamada, 2010, Par. 2). In the year 2008, this commission gave out a “standard on intimidating and disruptive behaviors at work” (Yamada, 2010, Par. 2). While issuing this standard, the commission cited its concerns about patients in which it indicated that bullying practices at the workplace have an adverse e