There is little doubt these days that one of the most important questions on the minds of nurses is “if I am assigned a patient infected with the Ebola virus, can I refuse to take care of that patient?” The answer is “no!” I know how scary it can be to take care of a patient with a highly contagious disease with no cure. Unfortunately, nurses cannot pick and choose which patients we want to care for. As an employee, it is considered a master-servant relationship and we are required to tend to … [Read more...]
Using Your GIFTS To Protect Your License
My new client, Katie, sits across from me because of a situation that happened at work and resulted in a complaint before the Nurse Licensing Board. She’s scared and crying. I can tell by talking to her that she is a very compassionate nurse and does a great job. Yet, she doesn’t understand why this is happening to her. Like most of my nurse clients, few ever thought that they would be called before the Board. But it happens every day: 7,000 nurses have their licenses charged before the … [Read more...]
Peer Assistance Programs
If you’ve been asked to go into a peer assistance program or if you voluntarily choose to go into the program to protect your license, here some things you should know. First, you will need to sign a recovery monitoring agreement which basically is a contract that you are entering the program and agree to certain of its requirements. Getting into the program, you will need to know how long they want you to participate in it. Usually there is a monthly participation fee and the … [Read more...]
Is Your Co-Worker Impaired?
Substance abuse is one of the most important issues in nursing because access is so easy. Even with Pyxis machines that distribute medications with a thumb print, there still are ways that a determined nurse can divert medication. According to the Indiana State Nurses Assistance Program [ISNAP]: Impaired nurses demonstrate mood swings and irritability. He/she may seem depressed for no apparent reason. There can be frequent complaints from nursing peers, patients, or family members that the … [Read more...]
We All Make Mistakes
Lately I have been receiving a lot of calls from nurses who either had a criminal problem in their past and are afraid that they won’t be able to get their nursing license or have had a criminal matter after they had obtained their license. None of these nurses ever thought that they would have a criminal matter but somehow they did. Because the facility where she worked was short-staffed, one nurse forgot to give a medication. She actually worked 120 hours in that pay period. She was afraid … [Read more...]
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