I am an RN working at a large University student health center. My employer wants us staff nurses to rotate through a "medication dispensing nurse" position. This nurse will work in a room filled with stock meds, dispensing them to students who have been given prescriptions from our providers (MDs, CRNPs, and PAs). We will be responsible for ordering, inventorying, storing, and dispensing multiple doses of medications. It sounds like a job for a pharmacist to us but our employer refuses to hire a pharmacist because "it would cost too much money."
We think this is outside the scope of practice of an RN. We feel that the PA nurse practice act says that nurses administer single doses of meds, not dispense multiple doses of medications. However, our employer is adamant that this is within our scope of practice because they are directing us to do it and they will write a policy to "cover us". We have been resisting this for 9 months but time is running out.
The PA State board of nursing has not been helpful. They will not help us to interpret the nurse practice act.
What do you think? Can RNs legally dispense multiple doses of meds?
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