I am seeing more and more cases where nurses are initially representing themselves in State Nursing Board investigations, meeting with State Nursing Board investigators and Pharmacy Board investigators, attending investigative meetings with State Nursing Board investigators without legal counsel, and providing verbal, written, and recorded responses to the complaint to various law enforcement and State Nursing Board personnel, and submitting a written response to the allegations in the complaint without the assistance of legal counsel to the State Nursing Board.
If you receive a phone call and a State Nursing Board investigator, Pharmacy Board investigator, and/or Detective LaTonia Denise Wright from the _________County Drug Diversion Task Force wants to meet with you at the local McDonald's, its not because they want you to sample the new Strawberry/Banana or Berry Berry Smoothie at McDonalds.
So many nurses receive the initial complaint from the State Nursing Board and write a 5-10 page response and submit it to the State Nursing Board without blinking an eye, taking a deep breath, or passing go and collecting $200.00.
I am also seeing cases where a nurse has a license defense protection benefit with NSO or Marsh Affinity/Chicago Insurance Company and do not contact the insurer immediately for a referral to an attorney.
If a complaint is filed against my law license, I am going to retain an attorney to represent me. No questions asked because its my license and frankly I couldn't be objective enough to represent myself. Your first thought is "I didn't do anything wrong." Its not about right or wrong and its about violating a State Nurse Practice Act/Board of Nursing regulations.
Also this is why I have legal malpractice insurance that costs my firm a few thousand dollars a year. Yes, my legal malpractice insurance costs several thousands dollars a year. There is no way in hell I would attempt to respond to a complaint filed against my licenses with the Indiana, Ohio, and/or Kentucky Supreme Courts without hiring an attorney who specializes in representing lawyers in disciplinary cases. Why?
As a licensed professional, you MUST afford a certain amount of deference to your State Licensing Agency and to its process and procedure for the investigations and adjudication of complaints. Some nurses and other licensed healthcare professionals take a "its just the Board" or "the Board has bigger fish to fry than this case" and really rationalize the behavior, actions, or inaction underlying a State Nursing Board complaint.
So many nurses are so busy yelling "I can't believe this was reported to the State Nursing Board", " I did NOTHING wrong", "they didn't do this to so in so" or "this is so unfair" that they are not mounting a defense to the complaint initially. This doesn't help you. The online nursing chatrooms, boards, and forums are filled with angry and bitter nurses dealing with a State Nursing Board complaint/discipline and most (if not all) without the benefit of legal representation.
In serious cases, I tell my clients we will be working together for years. Yes, years pumpkin not days or months. We are doing time together: 1-3 years, 2-5 years, or 3-6 years.
I have said it once and I will say it again until I retire from law practice (20-25 years), its not nursing negligence or nursing malpractice you have to worry about as a nurse; its having a complaint filed against your license with the State Nursing Board or another heatlhcare regulatory agency like the Department of Health, Attorney General, or Jobs & Family Services.
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