Mean Girls

Rhian Collins, a mother of two young children and nurse:

After a 5-month long investigation into the circumstances surrounding her death, it has been concluded that Collin's death was the result of her having experienced issues at work, particularly with bullying co-workers who made her life "very difficult," per the report. "Nurse Died By Suicide Due to Reported Bullying at Work "

Andrew Earl is another nurse who committed suicide after experiencing what is described as relentless psychological bullying while in the workplace.

'Those closest to him have told the Sunday Canberra Times that before his death, Andrew faced relentless psychological bullying while in the workplace'.

'[The colleague] constantly criticised and questioned his work. [Andrew told me the colleague] made changes to his work so it appeared to the rest of his team that he'd completed his work incompetently. Over nine to 12 months, it wore him down until he was mentally and emotionally exhausted,' she said.

What can be done?

The issue of female bullying has been identified in nursing literature since 1985 and the problem of bullying is becoming worse, not better.

The Millennials, have been identified as the new and growing face of perpetrators in bullying within the field of nursing.

Methods such as identifying bullying behaviour and making reports to the human resource department has not proven to be effective measures at all. I suspect the failure of interventions is because they are happening well and truly after the behaviour has become ingrained. Truly effective measures need to begin in schools, just as this type of behaviour is emerging in prepubescent females.

So yes, Virginia, it is a "bit high school", and that's the problem, because it isn't stopped in school and it persists into the workplace. Female bullying is not something to be scoffed at, it needs to be tackled at the root, when bullying women are developing their strategies and tactics.