WASHINGTON ― Speaker after speaker, veteran emergency department (ED) physicians and nurses approached the podium for a press conference last Wednesday morning on the US Capitol lawn across from the East Senate steps to describe violent incidents — being bitten, punched, slapped, kicked, choked, spat on, threatened — that they have both observed and have been subject to while working in EDs.
The press conference was co-sponsored by the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) and the Emergency Nurses Association (ENA), which have partnered since 2019 on the No Silence on ED Violence campaign.
The numbers confirm their experience. A 2018 poll of 3500 ED physicians nationwide, which was conducted by Marketing General Incorporated and was reported at ACEP's annual meeting that year, found that nearly half of respondents had been assaulted at work; 27% of them were injured from the assault. Nurses, who spend more time with patients, may face even higher rates.
Incidence was reported to be increasing in 2018, and that was before the social and psychological upheavals imposed by the COVID pandemic caused assaults on staff in the hospital to go up an estimated 200% to 300%.
But what really grated was that more than 95% of such cases, mostly perpetrated by patients, were never prosecuted, said Jennifer Casaletto, MD, FACEP, a North Carolina emergency physician and president of the state's ACEP chapter.
