Home > Blog > Examples of Conflict in Healthcare Settings: 7 Nursing Scenarios and How to Respond
What Is Conflict in Healthcare?
Examples of conflict in healthcare settings include patients who disagree with a treatment plan, miscommunication during shift handovers, and disagreements over emergency triage. Others involve agitated patients in pain, family disagreements about end-of-life care, nurse workload tension, and physician-nurse disagreements about care plans.
Conflict in healthcare refers to any disagreement or interpersonal conflict between individuals or groups. Interpersonal conflict can occur between healthcare staff, such as nurses and physicians, or involve patients and their families. Conflict in healthcare settings can stem from differences in personal values or goals or simply through miscommunication.
Disagreement is a normal part of care work. High-stakes decisions, shift work, and interdisciplinary teams bring different priorities together, and even strong teams experience friction. Conflict can also signal that needs and interests beneath the surface aren’t being met.
The scenarios below show how conflict can appear and how nurse managers, HR leaders, and healthcare executives can respond.
Common Causes of Conflict in Healthcare Settings
Four causes come up again and again in healthcare conflict, starting with role clarity. Healthcare teams are interdisciplinary, so conflicts can arise when roles overlap or are unclear. For instance, misunderstandings between nurses and attending physicians regarding patient treatment plans can create friction.
Studies of role conflict among nurses have examined how competing role expectations relate to job satisfaction. Communication gaps come second, since time pressure and high patient loads can shorten conversations and let important details slip between colleagues or shifts.
Resource scarcity and ethical dilemmas round out the four. Limited resources, including staff and equipment, can increase stress and competition, especially in a high-stress environment like healthcare. Healthcare professionals regularly encounter ethical dilemmas, particularly in cases involving end-of-life care or patient autonomy.
Beneath these surface causes, people may feel that their autonomy, respect, or sense of fairness is at stake. Dr. Jeremy Pollack’s work on the SAPIEN needs model describes six core psychological needs that can shape reactions when they feel threatened. A nurse who pushes back on an assignment may be responding to a perceived lack of fairness as much as to the workload itself.
7 Examples of Conflict in Healthcare Settings and How to Respond
The nursing conflict scenario examples below are illustrative composites, each paired with a response approach.
Patient Disagrees With a Treatment Plan
Among common nursing conflict scenario examples is a situation where a patient arrives with a severe infection, and the attending physician recommends antibiotics and a short hospital stay. However, the patient refuses, expressing a strong belief in alternative treatments. Family members may support that choice.
The provider can start by actively listening to the patient’s concerns and validating their perspective, even if they disagree. Asking “Help me understand what worries you most about the antibiotics” can surface fears, past experiences, or value conflicts in healthcare beneath the refusal. Staff can then explain the recommended treatment clearly and without judgment and bring in the physician to talk through options.
Miscommunication During Shift Handover
In a busy hospital, a nurse takes over a shift but receives incomplete information about a critical patient’s condition. When the doctor comes around later, they notice gaps in the patient’s treatment. Blame can then build between shifts.
A structured handoff protocol gives both nurses a shared checklist. Additionally, scheduling brief overlap periods between shifts provides a window for any questions or clarifications. When something’s missed, a blame-free opener like “Let’s walk through what we each knew at handoff” can keep the focus on process.
The Joint Commission sentinel event review of voluntarily reported 2024 events lists inadequate staff-to-staff communication during handoffs as one of several contributing factors. MedEdPORTAL’s I-PASS handoff study results report that a structured handoff bundle at nine hospitals was associated with 23% fewer medical errors. The same MedEdPORTAL report links the bundle to 30% fewer preventable adverse events, though the 2014 study covered pediatric resident handoffs rather than nursing shifts.
Disagreement Over Emergency Department Triage
Two patients need immediate attention in an emergency department: a child with a broken arm and an elderly patient with chest pain. Staff, or waiting family members, may disagree about who should be seen first.
Anchoring the decision in shared, evidence-based triage criteria can keep the conversation focused on the protocol everyone follows. Calm updates for waiting families, such as “We’re seeing patients in order of medical urgency, and I’ll check back soon,” can ease frustration. A short debrief after the shift lets staff talk through lingering disagreement.
Patient Who Is Agitated or in Pain
A patient recovering from surgery experiences intense pain, becoming increasingly agitated and verbally aggressive with the nursing staff. They demand more medication, even though they recently received a dose.
BLS workplace violence data count 41,960 nonfatal cases requiring days away, job restriction, or transfer in health care and social assistance in 2021–2022. The same BLS factsheet puts that at 72.8% of all such private-industry cases.
The nurse can acknowledge the pain first with a phrase like “I can see how much this hurts, and I want to help.” A calm tone, open posture, and rational detachment (not taking the words personally) can help slow the conversation. If necessary, the nurse can explain when the next dose is due or suggest non-medication-based pain management options, like breathing exercises, to help the patient until their next dose.
If there’s an immediate threat of violence or serious harm, follow your organization’s emergency procedures. De-escalation supports safety but doesn’t replace safety protocols.
Family Members Disagree About End-of-Life Care
In end-of-life care, family members may have differing opinions on whether to continue aggressive treatments or opt for palliative care. For example, one family member may insist on all possible interventions, while another might prioritize the patient’s comfort.
A structured family meeting led by a neutral third party, such as a social worker, can provide a platform for family members to express their views. The care team can explain prognosis and options plainly and return to the patient’s wishes: “What do you think matters most to her right now?” If needed, involving an ethics committee may help provide additional guidance and clarity, especially in complex or ethically charged cases.
Nurses Disagree About Workload and Assignments
Workload tension can build quietly on a short-staffed unit. One nurse feels they keep getting the heaviest assignments while a colleague gets lighter ones, and tension shows up as curt handoffs and avoidance. Avoidance can feel easier but lets frustration build.
The charge nurse or manager can meet with each nurse privately about needs like fairness or recognition: “What would make assignments feel fair to you?” Making assignment criteria transparent and following up afterward can help both nurses see the same picture. Research on how nurses manage conflict can help leaders recognize common conflict styles.
A Physician and Nurse Disagree About a Care Plan
Hierarchy can make care-plan disagreements harder to raise. A nurse notices that a patient’s condition is changing, but a well-meaning physician whose tone feels dismissive under time pressure doesn’t change the order. The nurse may feel their judgment isn’t respected, and the physician may feel second-guessed.
A structured escalation format lets the nurse state the observation, concern, and request: “I’m seeing X, I’m concerned about Y, and I’d like us to reassess.” Leaders can back this with norms that make it safe to speak up across the hierarchy.
How Unresolved Conflict Affects Patient Care and Staff
Unresolved conflict can affect patients as well as the people caring for them. Tension between colleagues can contribute to communication breakdowns, and patients may notice strain on a unit and lose some trust. For staff, ongoing conflict can add significant stress and contribute to burnout.
Turnover raises the stakes for leaders. In its NSI 2026 retention report, NSI Nursing Solutions, a nurse recruitment firm, put 2025 RN turnover at 17.6% in a survey of 527 hospitals. The same NSI survey puts the average cost of each staff RN departure at $60,090.
NSI doesn’t name conflict as a reason for these departures, so any connection is worth measuring locally. Conflict can also surface late, often after people have disengaged, which makes it worth tracking hospital conflict and turnover together.
Conflict Resolution Strategies for Healthcare Leaders
Leaders shape how conflict is handled long before it escalates. Effective conflict resolution in healthcare can depend on structures that help people raise concerns early and skills that help them respond calmly. The practices below can give teams that foundation.
- Hold regular huddles and keep open channels so staff can raise concerns about workload, safety, or communication before they build.
- Define roles and protocols clearly, especially for handoffs, triage, and escalation, so expectations don’t depend on who’s on shift.
- Build communication and de-escalation skills, such as reflective listening, the HEARD method, jargon-free language, and spotting early warning signs like pacing or raised voices.
- Model respectful behavior and check in early when you notice tension, before it becomes a formal complaint.
- Bring in a neutral facilitator or mediator when conflict between staff becomes entrenched or affects a whole unit.
A mediator’s role is facilitative. Mediators create a structured, impartial space where everyone involved can share their perspective, explore interests beyond positions, and shape agreements together. They don’t decide who’s right.
Frequently Asked Questions
A neutral mediator should be involved when direct conversations and manager check-ins haven’t helped. Mediation can also help when conflict affects care coordination or a whole unit, or when a power imbalance makes open conversation hard.
The main types of conflict in nursing are task-based, relationship-based, and values-based conflict. Task conflict involves workload or procedures, and relationship conflict involves personality, respect, or tone. Values conflict involves ethical questions such as end-of-life decisions or patient autonomy.
How PPS Supports Healthcare Teams
Pollack Peacebuilding Systems offers hospitals mediation, conflict resolution training, and de-escalation skill-building that help staff work through conflict with colleagues, patients, and families. Our Peacebuilders use a transformative, interest-based approach that focuses on the needs and perspectives beneath the surface. Learn more about our conflict resolution for hospitals services.
