TX Nurses facing criminal charges for reporting doctor to Board of Medicine

(((quezen)))...i am so, so sorry.
truly, my heart broke reading your story.

around 5 yrs ago, i too, voiced concerns about substandard care.
i fought for the cause and my resultant termination-all the way up to the ceo's of the facility's corporation.
long story short:
bad people win.

and fighting for the common good, is a full-time job that sucks your spirit and soul from you.
it took me a couple of yrs to recover, and still quiver to recall the experience.

i pray for your peace, in finding closure and resolution.

leslie

Good Heavens 'Leslie D', you are truly a sensitive soul. Thank you so much for your kind words, but Please, be a little protective of your precious Heart.
As a person with 'moon in Leo', I just have a dramatic writing style. Everything I wrote that happened to me is true, but you know what? Because I got the 'shaft' so early in this new century, I have already learned to happily drive my old truck, shop at the Good Will, go without annoying TV, heat with wood, and NOT depend on full time Nursing to fulfill me as a human being.
Look at all the people who have to learn it now, all of a sudden! I feel kind of like I got a 'leg up', on the recession situation!
In the immortal word of Willie Nelson (since the scene of this latest 'Nursing Crime Story' is Texas), "I'm not cold, I'm not wet and I'm not hungry, so classify these as good times!"

The alarmist tone of the original post about "Mitchell and Galle" made me think, originally, that it was the 'bad guy' doctors against the 'good guy' nurses. A closer reading shows that the Texas Medical Board itself seems to be trying to keep an even tone in the situation and is even pointing out that the Nurses have the right to make a complaint.

I know of some doctors who have quit the field because they thought they were going into health care to 'care' for people.
When they saw the truth of the situation they were in they just quit, went and did something else with their lives.
Some nurses have done that to, we tend to refer to this more as 'burnout' when it happens to nurses.

For everyone else who stays in, for what ever reason, we have to realize that we, doctors and nurses, have to somehow get along and work together under the 'lash' of our masters, the 'managers' and 'moneymen' of the healthcare field.

Please, lets not start 'knocking the Docs', without an examination of the situation.

According to the Houston Chronicle of 17 July 2009, the executive director of the Texas Medical Board sent a letter to the Winkler County District Attorney defending the Nurses action;
"The willingness of persons to come forward and file complaints with the Board is critical to the Boards success in regulating the practice of medicine as required by Texas law."

The newspaper stories go on to say that the Nurses were unhappy with "Dr. Rolando A. s" practice of recommending Herbal Medicines to patients, and then suggesting that they could buy these Herbal Medicines from him.
These ER nurses also accused the doctor of trying to take 'supplies' from the hospital to treat a patient at home.
(No mention of what these 'supplies' were, alcohol wipes?, syringe and needle?, Foley cath?, it doesn't really matter, I would just kind of like to know, wouldn't any of you 'inquiring minds' like to know?)

It seems that the Sheriffs Department of Winkler County, Texas filled these third degree felony charges against the nurses because of "misuse of official information", after the sheriffs Department responded to a charge of personal harassment that the doctor filled. The nurses, it seems, sent the medical records of ten patients to the Texas Medical Board, no names were included, just 'medical record numbers'.
The newspaper article goes on to say that the Sheriff then interviewed these ten patients, none wanted to make a complaint about their care. (How did the Sheriff end up in possession of the 'patient names'?) According to the Winkler County Sheriff;
"what it boils down to is we have a couple of nurses here who have a personal vendetta against a doctor".

Spoken like a true West Texas County Sheriff, if you ask me. I can imagine that he sees this kind of "he say, she say" stuff all the time, I am sure he is somewhat taken aback at all the attention this has generated!

Third degree felony charges are ridiculous, the whole thing is ridiculous. This is the 'down side' of HIPPA in action, you can't say one word about any actual thing that goes on in the 'healthcare industry", because you are 'violating someones privacy'.

The newspaper article goes on to say that a preliminary hearing was held last Wednesday to dismiss the charges, but no action was taken. Also, of course, "the Winkler County District Attorney was 'out of town' Friday and unavailable for comment.
Now we will see that other 'profession' so intertwined with the health care field jump on this bandwagon. The more money available, the longer this will drag this on.
I bet the local diner in Kermit is gitin excited at the thought of all those lawyers who will need to be fed!
These State and National organizations coming down on hospital hankie-panky in a little West Texas town is like a 500 pound gorilla walking down the Main Street at High Noon lookin for the showdown.
It won't be anything like battling healthcare industry malfeasance in Washington DC, where 'Swat Teams' of legally armed Special attorneys are waiting around every expertly barricaded corner!

I want to go out on a limb and predict the outcome of all this.
Nothing will happen, the charges will be dismissed, after all the money collected for the legal fees is exhausted, of course.
Nothing (legally) will happen to the Nurses, nothing at all will happen to the Doctor.

The Nurses have already lost their jobs, they will not get them back.

We on 'allnurses' will be here to commiserate with Mitchell and Galle.
Let me be the first to offer my condolences to Mitchell and Galle.
I am really, really sorry for both of you and for what you have to go through. It hurts, I know.

At one facility where I worked a doc owned an ambulance company and skilled care facility as well as a ambulatory care center. He used to pressure patients to use the businesses he owned, write orders to use his ambulance service and send people that had no one to speak for them to his nursing home(all at expense of the taxpayer). I knew it was wrong but I also knew what a waste of time it was for me to try and do anything about it. Guess what, a few years later the government got wind of what was going on and apparently a lot of docs were doing it.(it was sort of a gray area at the time) Regulations were changed and a lot of people like him kept on doing it and got caught at it. He just barely stayed out of jail, so he ended up used his life savings instead of me spending mine.

A prosecutor could indict a ham sandwich if they choose. I think that these nurses will be cleared by the system ultimately but not without a lot of heartburn.

After undergoing a bullying/mobbing by a manager and coworker I ended up losing my position simply because if you throw enough mud eventually it will stick. (The silver lining of this was that I ended up going to nursing school and getting an even better job.) Those events still hurt but it did end up working out for the best. One of the perpetrators ended up having a subordinate that she had hired promoted over her to be her direct boss. I no longer work for that organization but those still inside basically say it was time she received her comeuppance....

The best revenge is living well.

HEY;
The original post which led to my and the other nurses response has been altered.
Also the name of the thread has been changed from the original, to which I first responded.
This kind of makes my comment about "the alarmist tone of the original Post" look a little out in left field.
Whats up with that !?!

To me this kind of makes the tactics of the 'lawyer nurse' organizations look a little suspect.

Are all of us here on 'allnurses' allowed to go back and change our Posts, if we decide that the 'tone' is perhaps not providing the right bridge to a predetermined goal?

I do think that perhaps sometimes nurses are 'bated' into predetermined responses by carefully worded stories about how 'Nurses' have been 'wronged' by another profession.

I also think that is part of the story within this story.

Some of the wording in the ORIGINAL Post, such as 'has a chilling effect' is straight out of the play book of the 'Adverse Action' department of certain agencies of the US Government, who's mission in life is to 'bust' Nurses who step out of line, in the opinion of some of the 'greater powers' who are running the show in some departments way above us ordinary Nurses. Some of these very same 'lawyer nurses' go straight from their Government job, upon retirement, to work for a 'National Organization', where they can continue their previous career of making a living by doing something involving legal 'nursing stuff'.
This is how the rest of Washington works, as we read every day, leave a government job, pick up a similar job the next day in the 'private' field.

Sites like 'allnurses' are making it clear that we Nurses do have a few Smarts after all, and if the support of 'all the Nurses' is asked for, then 'we, the Nurses' are actually able to understand if something is explained to us without flaming subjective rhetoric, designed to engender the ole 'Nurses to the Barricades' approach, that got a lot of Nurses to stick their necks out, only to be surprised when the ax fell.

I would like to reiterate, 'we' , Nurses and Doctors, are the ones who actually provide patient care.
'We', Nurses and Doctors, need to find common ground to get along with each other, and stop the anonymous back stabbing.
There are lots and lots of people out there, who never touch a patient, who love it when problems arise. That is a clarion call to move in and scarf up, peripherally, on some of the huge amounts of money we, Nurses and Doctors, who work with actual, real patients, generate.

I am not saying that what this doctor did was right, but LOOK at the name of the doctor involved. Now look at a map. How many of those patients, who come to that ER for 'primary care, because that is the only way they CAN get health care, are very comfortable with 'Herbal Medicine'?
Look at the many comments by ER Nurses right here on 'allnurses' who are just fed up with a system that encourages the use of the ER for 'Primary Care', medicine. Don't you think that the Doctors feel the same way?

So a Doctor tried to make a buck off a patient, are we supposed to be shocked by that?
I'll bet you 'dollars to donuts' that that Doctor was going to do something 'primary care like' for some patient at the patients home, because, no matter how the health care system is reformed, people who are not citizens will not be eligible for care.
I personally would like to know WHAT supplies the doctor was trying to take out of the hospital.

There are a lot of issues that this bings up, besides just the fate of the poor Nurses who have lost their jobs, and who, I predict, will never get these jobs back, no matter how much money is 'thrown at' the issue in a 'little town in Texas'.
THAT is no different than the outcome of crossing the wrong movers and shakers in local politics anywhere in the world.

Again I can only say, wow, Mitchell and Galle, I am so sorry that you put your feet in these nasty waters. You just thought that the issues were clear, just wait until the lawyers get involved.
I wish you had your jobs back, and that all could live happily ever after.

A long time ago, when I was a grad student, I had a job supervising 3 group homes for DD individuals. One was for young adult and teen males, one for little an teen girls and the third was for the three kids with the lowest I.Qs (20 or below) who didn't neatly catagorize -- 2 boys ages 6 and 13 who functioned on about a 6 month level mentally but an 18 month old physically and a 16 year old girl who functioned overall as a three year old an also acted in a sexually inappropriate way with all males. (Phew!) That house was the hardest to keep staffed and running smoothly, by far and, often, I would find myself acting as a substitute houseparent on very short notice. On one such occasion, I grabbed the dufflebag of clothes that lived in my trunk and let myself in expecting a wild nonstop 48 hours. The house was too quiet. The two mostly nonverbal boys were parked on the floor and not in their special chairs and all alone. I had called out when I had come in but there had been no answer.

I called again as I went upstairs but, again, silence greeted me. Total and complete empty silence. I rounded the corner and suddenly heard the shower running. I knocked but there was no response. I opened the door and there was the male college student houseparent showering with and receiving oral sex from the teen girl resident. I have not been totally speechless many times in my whole life but that was one of them. I grabbed a towel and began to dry the girl then covered her and led her to her bedroom. I told the houseparent to stay put while I called my supervisor.

When she came, I had my witness and we fired him on the spot but he answered that his dad was a judge and his uncle a senator and he'd keep his job and we'd both lose ours'. Long story short, we came out on top but barely and that creep of a kid got into an Ivy League law school. I enlisted the support of some relatives in the law and politics and my boss and I came out OK but after everything imaginable was done to make us look unstable, immoral and irresponsible. While it was not in nursing, it had a profound effect on my career because it finally forced me to say I had not worked while in grad school and I was taught as a child that you never ever ever lie, no matter what the reason.

Kathy
sharpeimom

Please read this thread about this too:

http://allnurses.com/general-nursing...on-408703.html

Wow what happened to not being punished for telling the truth, scary!

Whatever happened to the good guys win. I guess the old saying is true, nice guys finish last.

Merged threads together