Nurses if you reside in a Compact state (https://www.ncsbn.org/nlc.htm) and you are practicing in one or more states other than your home state and a complaint is filed against your license; consider hiring an attorney at the beginning of the investigation. Don't wait until action is taken against your privilege to practice in one state and then reported to your home state (the state where you live).
I know times are hard and it costs money to hire an attorney but its money well spent to have someone advocating on your behalf before the Board and counseling and advising you also. You can hire an attorney at any point (the day before a hearing if necessary) but if you are going to retain someone, hire the attorney at the beginning of the investigation as opposed to the end of the process (before a hearing or after a hearing when you are considering an appeal) for the full benefit of representation, counseling, and advising.
Alot of nurses take a wait and see approach. Well let me represent myself and wait and see whether I can get this resolved on my own without the assistance of an attorney. Sometimes this approach works and sometimes it doesn't.
As Clint Eastwood says, Do you feel lucky?
If so, then by all means represent yourself. If you are going to represent yourself then do the research and reading necessary to properly represent, counsel, and advise yourself before the State Nursing Board. I would say a mininum of 15-20 hours of research and literature review. Please don't email me and ask me what should you review because I am going to have my assistant contact you about scheduling a consultation.
There is a tendency in these cases to minimize the seriousness of the complaint (because its you), exclaim "I didn't do ANYTHING wrong (because its you), to underestimate the adversarial nature of these cases (because its you), and to say "its the Nursing Board, I am a nurse, they are nurses", how bad can this really be? The legal regulation of nursing practice is no laughing matter.
This is a risk of practicing in a Compact State, you may have to defend yourself in a disciplinary investigation in a remote state and later in your home state. Its not a fault of the Compact because the same would be true if you had a license via endorsement in multiple states; once Nursing Board A takes action against your license, other states where you are licensed, like State Nursing Board B and C will be notified at some point.
If you are a nurse and you are practicing in the Nurse License Compact in more than one Compact state, you needed your own professional liability insurance policy with a license defense benefit yesterday.
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