It seems that about 2/3rds of the posts on here mention either being sued or losing your license...it doesn't seem to matter what the topic is someone makes a comment about losing your license or being sued.
I am curious as to whether this is a valid fear or whether this is part of fear-based nursing culture.
1. How many years have you been a nurse?
2. How many nurses do you know personally that have been sued?
3. How many of those nurses who were sued have had to testify in court?
4. How many of those who testified were found guilty?
5. How many nurses do you know personally who have lost their license for patient related (non-criminal) actions? (By non - criminal I mean not for cases of drug diverting or robbing a back or something where the nurse knows what they are doing is illegal and will result in losing their license)
i have been a nurse for 40 years and now practice as a legal nurse consultant. i give a talk on nursing malpractice for the nursing schools in the area. here are some facts:
each year more people die from medical malpractice than from motor vehicle accidents (43,458), breast cancer (42,297), or aids.
ten years ago, 20% of malpractice suits were lawsuits against nurses. today, that number has grown to over 35%.
16,339 nurses and nursing related practitioners had a malpractice report made against them in the us between 1990 and 2003.
malpractice payments were highest for nonspecialized rn's followed by nurse anesthetists and then nurse midwifes.
nursing malpractice occurs only under two conditions:
you make a mistake that can be proved to have harmed a patient, and the mistake is one that a reasonably careful nurse would not have made in a similar situation.
the law does not require you to provide the best or safest care humanly possible - only to meet a reasonable standard.
[*][color=white]there are six major categories that result in nursing malpractice lawsuits:
[color=white]failure to follow standards of care
[color=white]failure to assess and monitor
failure to act as a patient advocate
failure to use equipment in a responsible manner
failure to communicate
failure to document, including failure to note in the patient's medical record
[*]the injured person or plaintiff must prove two points:
the nurse did something wrong that a reasonable prudent nurse wouldn't have done
the nurse's mistake was a proximate cause of his/her injury
just thought i'd share some information. maybe it will answer some questions.
2. How many nurses do you know personally that have been sued? 1
3. How many of those nurses who were sued have had to testify in court? 1
4. How many of those who testified were found guilty? 1
5. How many nurses do you know personally who have lost their license for patient related (non-criminal) actions? (By non - criminal I mean not for cases of drug diverting or robbing a back or something where the nurse knows what they are doing is illegal and will result in losing their license 1
During my first nursing Job, I had a nurse ask me to come into the med room, as she had dropped an entire plastic divider/holder of Percoet, and wanted me to witness the number wasted. (The facility did not have blister packs at the time)
She was extremely nervous, and I felt something was suspicious and the meds we were counting, looked like Percocet but something just didn't seem right.
I discussed my concerns with my DON, and about a month later, I was called in, and there was a police officer present, who needed my statement on what occurred that night.
I never got called in to testify, but to make an extremely LONG story short, this nurse was brought in front of the board of nursing, and her license was taken away.
She was replacing the percocet in the plastic divider/container with magnesium tablets, and manually scoring them, to make them look like percocet.
The worst part was that this man was in pain for days, and nobody couldn't figure out why his q 4 hour Percocet was not handling his pain.
I hope to never be involved in a situation like that again. The nurse worked alot of midnights, and there was only one charge nurse on during the NOC.
The facility then went to blister packing of all narcotics, and got rid of these stupid containers, where the bottom slid out, and your medication was in a numbered compartment.
I work in Michigan, and online it is amazing the number of nurses losing their license over diversion.
I am now a Nurse Manager at another facility, and I have extremely stringent polices on narcotics. When I first took over the position we started having duragesic patches missing off the residents. Sure occasionally a patch falls off, but we were missing excessive amounts of patches. Ended up doing a facility investigation, had the entire nursing staff tested for Fentanyl, had the state come in and investigate, police investigation, and we never were able to figure out who it was. I have a feeling it was an employee who was terminated shortly before the nurses started noticing they were missing.
It was the worst investigation I have ever been through. I now have my charge nurses checking placement of these patches q 1 hour. It's a bit excessive, but it's something I had to do as an intervention. Many of the nurses keep asking me, if we can go to q shift checks, however my original plan of correction was for hourly checks for 6 months and until 100% compliance was achieved during 6 consecutive monthly audits.
I keep finding blanks in the MAR, so they continue to check these q 1 hour, and I enforce this to the max.
Specializes in Corporate Compliance ICU, US Army ret.
I have been a registered Nurse for 36 years and my answer to all has been one. It was part of an investigation that I was conducting with Medicaid. My roll was to provide the evidence to the Board of Nursing. You my feel comfortable in the knowledge that this was a very good thing for the profession. As for me I was actually upset with this nurse in that his choice to be unprofessional and abusive to his clients placed me in a position to report him to the BON. Nurses need to remember and think before they act. There are some of us in regulatory roles and it actually is very distastful to us find nurses behaving poorly and being placed in a position to act against a fellow nurse. The bottom line is that it the patient that counts and our charge is to protect the patient and the public. Richard
2/3 of the posts? Nah, don't think so. Sounds more like a homework assignment I have known several nurses who got fired for drug diversion, none of them lost their licenses, one refused to go to rehab and still didn't lose her license, only a slap on the wrist, license is on probation but she is able to work unemcumbered. That's a real shame. No rehab should equal no license but unfortunately I don't make the rules.
I now have my charge nurses checking placement of these patches q 1 hour. It's a bit excessive, but it's something I had to do as an intervention. Many of the nurses keep asking me, if we can go to q shift checks, however my original plan of correction was for hourly checks for 6 months and until 100% compliance was achieved during 6 consecutive monthly audits.
I keep finding blanks in the MAR, so they continue to check these q 1 hour, and I enforce this to the max.
I never before thought that this could be an issue. The facility that I work at doesn't have the policy of checking placement of patches, and there have been several times when I have had an order to remove a patch and when I check the pt and bed there was no patch to remove. In those situation I generally record something like "no patch observed on pt" - do you think that is sufficient documentation on my part?
Been a nurse for 26 years. Never known another nurse to be sued. Never known a nurse to lose license over anything except drug related (theft/abuse) issues.
My friends who are nurses do not carry malpractice insurance, saying that it draws attention to a nurse's assets, whereas, most nurses don't make enough to make suing worthwhile. That's their opinion. I still carry my malpractice insurance, though.
I have been a nurse for 38 yrs. I have maybe seen 5 court cases but usually it was against the hospital or MD and the nurse just needed to testify.
I went to a conference probably 25 years ago on malpractice and one thing the presenter said has always stuck in my mind.
He said besides using good nursing judgement the number one thing you can do to prevent personal lawsuits is to be really, really nice to patients Not only will it help but it will make you a better nurse. Lots of people don't want to sue "that really nice nurse" Of course this is not to substitute good nursing!
Several years ago, I remember once wandering to the web page of New York State's Education Department License Division (they're the ones who grants and disciplines all NYS professional licenses) and looking up the revocation and suspensions of nurses; the results were eye opening. The majority, and I mean like 99 out of 100, of cause for license action was related to improper activity with controlled substances (theft, diversion, substitution, etc). Very, very rarely, did I see anything related to improper clinical care. Further, I was not able to find a single example of action taken for abandonment.
That site is interesting. There are several also for signing for meds/treatments not done.
Forgot to add, I don't know of anyone that has lost their license or been sued, but I've only been a nurse for 5 years.
I have known several nurses who got fired for drug diversion, none of them lost their licenses, one refused to go to rehab and still didn't lose her license, only a slap on the wrist, license is on probation but she is able to work unemcumbered. That's a real shame. No rehab should equal no license but unfortunately I don't make the rules..thumb.gif.5406a59d44f5c666e8ff3ebac639497a.gif){kind=avatar}
Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN
20,908 Posts
HaHa..how true, how true.........lawsuits are usually more common in certian specialities....ED, Corrections, Labor and delivery, surgery, ICU.....
I had my house burn down.....and I sure was glad I HAD INSURANCE!