Is there life after being Fired as an RN??

hire an attorney now. if they call you into a meeting bring your attorney or a neutral witness.

If the worst happens and you are called into the office to be fired, tell them you are resigning and you will have your letter of resignation on their desk before the end of the day. In other words, "you can't fire me because I quit". In that letter make a statement that they are only to release your date of hire and date of termination and that you resigned voluntarily to anyone seeking a job reference on you. That puts them on notice. Keep copies of it.

Hang in there. This has happened to me twice in my 30 years. I got so nasty with one DON (of a nursing home) when I got called in to get fired that we all went up to the Personnel Director. The Personnel Director offered me 3 weeks of severance pay if she had my letter of resignation on her desk by the end of the day and I said absolutely nothing to any of my coworkers about the circumstances around my leaving. They just wanted me out of there. I found out a month later that rumors that I had been fired circulated like crazy when I didn't show up anymore. However, when my next employer called for a reference they were told that I resigned voluntarily.

One or two jobs down the road and you won't need to be using them for a reference anymore and screw them (sorry). I was quite a pistol 30 years ago and have had to make big attitude adjustments over the years in case you couldn't figure that out.

Oh, and if I were you. . .I would start looking for another job. It's real obvious to me that the DON is looking to get you out. When I was a head nurse and had a nurse making a lot of errors, along with written warnings they were also required to do some mandatory education to get more insight into the errors they were making and a chance to improve their performance. Your DON doesn't sound like he's a very good manager. It's not enough for a manager to just tell you that you are doing something wrong. They should also help you set a goal and way to achieve it in correcting whatever you are doing wrong. I'd have a field day with this DON, but that's another story. Everyone else is just going to stand around watching the show relieved that they're not the one on the chopping block. You are branded and I don't know that you can ever rehabilitate your reputation with this facility right at this time. Honestly, kiddo, most of your co-workers will want to distance themselves from you because they won't want to be known associates. My advice would be to get out of there as soon as you can.

And, I disagree with medsurgnurse. You don't need a lawyer for this. You can handle quite easily yourself.

Mostly, probably in j ust about all cases that is NOT possible. And it is pretty sure they won't let an outside lawyer come with you for that matter as well. The employer/institution has a right to allow only those that they choose to allow into any such meetings--unless of course you are under union contract or some contract that allows for outside representation on the inside. It's up to the employer, and they generally won't allow it--anyone from the outside, much less a lawyer, period. You are all on your own in those meetings under At-Will-Employment. They may allow you to bring someone with you that's already an employee--someone from the inside already. But of course that puts pressure on that person--employee. Whether it should or should not occur doesn't matter. It does, period, end of story. So even if you can find some employee from the inside that would; they have a genuine right to be very careful and nervous as to how this might impact upon them in their position. Whether it is right or it should or shouldn't happen doesn't matter legally speaking.

What matters is the basis under which you are employeed--contract versus At-Will-Employment, for example. From their legal perspective, it is their institution, and while on their turf, unless it is stated otherwise in contract, they will not allow someone from the outside to come into any meetings with you. You can pretty much take that to the bank. HR in most cases is the best you will get, and regardless, HR is the employee of the institution. So . . . .

Very old thread and OP hasn't been back since Dec 05