I hope someone could give me advice. I'm an LPN in the state of Pennsylvania for the past 12yrs without a single blemish or investigation on my license.
I recently received a letter that states an allegation of neglect against me was found to be true. What happened was my prior place of employment is accusing me of giving too much liquid narcotic to a resident. BTW, nothing happened to the resident, no side effects or injury. I was not fired over this, I resigned. Prior to my resignation I did meet with the facility administration and told them there would be times that I would not measure the medicine before giving it to the resident. I admitted to this thinking that I would just be placed on probation or suspension. Well I was wrong.
So my question is what will happen to me? Will I lose my nursing license? Will I be placed on probation or be suspended?
I do plan on appealing this, but I'm not sure if I should get a lawyer.
Can anyone tell me of a decent lawyer for nurses in the state of Pennsylvania? I live in the Scranton area BTW.
I have no clue what to do and ANY advice would be helpful and appreciated.
Upon re-reading the OP, I find it impossible The any nurse could have been working for 12 years pouring meds and not know how to measure a liquid with a syringe. I call BS.
Why would you say that you did not measure the narcotic before giving it to the patient if you measured it? I just do not understand this....I am like the previous commentors, I would shut up and get an attorney even if you think you cannot afford one ....
Again, I did not overdose the resident. Administration claims they have me on camera filling the plastic dosing cup with way too much medicine. I should have challenged their claim as the camera can not discern how much medicine is in a small plastic dosing cup. I panicked when confronted with this information and I should have demanded that show me the film. Hindsight is 20/20.
Yes, I did panic and I said something stupid instead of asking to see the film or flat out denying it. And no I don't have issues with social interaction or authority. And there is no home stuff spilling into work. What do you mean exactly by your comment of "before you destroy your life?"
Trolling? Fishing? I assure you that I'm not looking for any money to help out a Nigerian Prince.
Nigerian prince? No. But, it boggles the mind that a nurse with 12 years experience, when accused of "giving too much liquid narcotic to a resident," a serious allegation would admit that "there would be times that I would not measure the medicine before giving it to the resident."
Specializes in hospice, LTC, public health, occupational health.
You're going to learn a hard lesson about bad choices.
Regularly working doubles while in school and only getting 3-4 hours of sleep on a regular basis is a recipe for disaster, and now it happened. Be grateful you didn't kill your patient, or someone on the road when you fell sleep driving. Allow this to teach you that you can't do everything all at once and you're going to have to make some sacrifices. Either you'll have to work fewer hours or cut school back to part time.
If this is your first med error, hopefully you'll be given education and allowed to move on with your life. Is your facility the punitive type? Because if they are it could go anywhere from a write up to termination. Hopefully you don't work for a place that would do that. As to your license, one med error does not threaten it unless someone can prove fraud or diversion. My first year as a nurse I made two reported med errors, and both times I wrote an incident report, went over how to avoid it happening again, and then that was it.
bd2rn
36 Posts
This whole thread smacks of fishing. \:
or trolling. Or something.