Page 39 - 영자신문최종

2020

Does Burning Culture Affect

Only Individuals?

So, what is the burning culture that led this nurse to her extreme choice? Burning culture
comes from the saying that people should “burn until the soul turns to ash.” It refers to the
belief that senior nurses should tame new nurses through bullying. Though their purpose
is education, the reality is just excessively mental and physical attacks which cause many
nurses to change their jobs. Also, it turns out that 40.9% of nurses have experienced burning
culture and, although the Labor Standards Act has been revised and enforced to prevent
such practices, the problem remains that there are no regulations for punishment.
So, what system led this burning culture to occur? In order to become a nurse, a person
must go through a process called OJT. This system regulates that the person must have
about 8 to 9 weeks’ experience in a general ward and about 12 weeks’ experience in an
intensive care unit. In this process, new nurses hired by hospitals are paired with senior
nurses so they can guide and educate the new nurses. The new nurse who has gone through
this process becomes another senior nurse and takes care of patients as her senior did.
Based on this system, it is necessary to look at the burning culture as a structural problem.
In Korea, one nurse takes care of about 14 patients. Due to this lack in the labor force, the
heavy workload, and the stress, education turns into violence. Also, one person's mistake
leads to an overload in the work of the surrounding nurses, and the vicious cycle repeats
itself. The chronic shortage in the labor force is a fundamental problem in the vicious cycle
of burning culture. Though a work overload cannot justify bullying, can we really view this
practice as merely a personal one?

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