I presented an Ohio nursing law and rules program for VITAS this week at Drake Hospital and after the presentation I was approached by several nurses. Download CenterarticleBOARDofNursinginvestigations. Since I represent nurses before the Ohio Nursing Board and with any CE presentation, the material is presented in a balanced and neutral fashion of course.
One nurse asked about legal nurse consulting, another asked about professional liability insurance, one was involved in a pending investigaiton before the Ohio Nursing Board, and one was being monitored by the Ohio Nursing Board.
The nurse involved in the pending investigation before the Board is representing herself and not doing so well at representing, counseling, and advising herself. She has provided inconsistent statements: one to the Nursing Board and one to her employer and has taken some other actions which really cast a shadow on her credibility. She met alone with the Nursing Board investigator who really grilled her on her lack of documentation of controlled substances. A criminal charge may be forthcoming.
I think the nurse is looking at being disciplined by the Ohio Nursing Board at some point in the future and if she contacts me and schedules and pays for a consultation, I will tell her this. But what struck me from my brief conversation with the nurse was the failure to grasp the seriousness of the allegations in the pending Nursing Board matter,the impact the accusations can and will have on her nursing career, and the real possibility of a criminal indictment. You cannot play around with the documentation of controlled substances.
The nurse being monitored by the Board told me she was tricked into the signing the Ohio Nursing Board Consent Agreement. I don't know how one as a professional can be tricked into signing a document and mailing it back to the State Nursing Board (which is over 80 miles away) but I explained to her that she is a professional and as a professional, she is accountable for her practice and actions.
If she had concerns about signing the Consent Agreement, she should have considered her options and spoke with an attorney before signing the Agreement, which is a legal and binding contract. Saying she was tricked into the signing the Agreement makes what is a professional matter sound like a personal matter and is not an accurate statement in my opinion.
You can't be tricked into signing a Consent Agreement, Agreed Order, Settlement Offer, Recovery Monitoring Agreement, etc.; either you sign it or you don't. In general, State Nursing Board staff (attorneys, compliance agents, investigators, monitoring agents, etc.) are not police officers or law enforcement officials and do not hold you a room for hours on end, questioning you in a warm and dark room with a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling until you cave in and sign an agreement and scream "I did it, I did it, I violated the Nurse Practice Act."
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