can I lose my license...

mRpeNa · Mar 28, 2011

Trust me I will document EVERYTHING now!

merlee · Mar 28, 2011

And how many other people saw this resident and did not notice a problem?

You are not likely to be reported to the BON for anything.

Everytime someone hits the floor - resident, guest, employee - an incident report must absolutely be done. Everytime. Period.

Best wishes!

mRpeNa · Mar 28, 2011

im still crying, Am i a bad nurse for this?

dthfytr, ADN, LPN, RN, EMT-B, EMT-I · Mar 28, 2011

Don't sweat your license. In reality, short of punching out your supervisor without good cause, it's really hard to lose a license. A state board employee once told me that 99% of complaints that go to state boards are only read until they get silly or stupid, then they go into the shredder. From what I see you don't have complete information to fill out an incident report. You have a lot of word of mouth, and a thorough investigation is needed, but I'd bet if you put what you have down on paper, something will end up being differant after everything shakes out.

Waste absolutely no time in notifying your supervisor (if you haven't punched him/her out) of what you've been told. They'll probably want you to put it in writing. Then they'll get written statements from everyone involved telling their side, everyone not involved explaining why they weren't, and everybody born on a Tuesday. Then they'll take all these novels and try to sort out fact from fiction.

Many facilities automatically fire a nurse anytime there's a problem. I've seen nurses fired for events that happened in the hospital and the nurse was on vacation 5 states away! Stop beating yourself up. Grow a thick shell fast to survive nursing, for reasons already mentioned. Wishing you a long happy career. I admire anybody who can do LTC. I need a nice chaotic ER myself.

dthfytr, ADN, LPN, RN, EMT-B, EMT-I · Mar 28, 2011

And no you're not a bad nurse!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The people who aren't worried about this patient are, though!

mRpeNa · Mar 28, 2011

I have been working there for 6months now and i have never seen this resident up. so i asked the aides that have been there for awhile if there was a reason she didnt get up, and i was told no, the nurses use to get her up but then we graudally stopped and the nurses didnt ever tell us to ge her up so we just stopped. So here i was wanting to do a good thing by starting to get her up and then this happens! I love my job and caring for the elderly, i have a passion for them and this is just tearing me up!

evolvingrn, BSN, RN · Mar 28, 2011

this doesn't make you a bad nurse, you learn from this and move on. be honest if questioned but also don't go around talking about this to every co-worker.

joy1 · Mar 28, 2011

The greatest problem in this situation you described is that a fellow resident saw this happen, who appears to be cognitively alert, and whose account seems reliable. Moreso, the said patient has an injury suffered from a recent fall -- It depends on this facility, how they tackle their risk management. At worse you will be let go without a warning. The CNAs will be let go, most likely as well. Were the family members notified? How involved are they with this pt care? This too could have an impact.

While this may never go to your BON, as this may bring a tag/fine of any kind to the facility, you should please always CYA, by way of proper interventions/documentation. Incidents happen every so often, many really can be avoided, but when it does happen, what we do as nurses is what matters most. I hope this serves as a wake-up call.

mRpeNa · Mar 28, 2011

i was questioned today and i told them what i knew and i was honest and i told them i take full responsibilty because i was the nurse on duty.

mRpeNa · Mar 28, 2011

The greatest problem in this situation you described is that a fellow resident saw this happen, who appears to be cognitively alert, and whose account seems reliable. Moreso, the said patient has an injury suffered from a recent fall -- It depends on this facility, how they tackle their risk management. At worse you will be let go without a warning. The CNAs will be let go, most likely as well.
While this may never go to your BON, as this may bring a tag/fine of any kind to the facility, you should please always CYA, by way of proper interventions/documentation. Incidents happen every so often, many really can be avoided, but when it does happen, what we do as nurses is what matters most. I hope this serves as a wake-up call.

believe me it does! :crying2:

P_RN, ADN, RN · Mar 29, 2011

One suggestion: incident reports of things you haven't actually seen with your own two eyes should say something like:

CNA reported that patient was found on floor. Or CNA reported that patient's roommate told her that patient was on floor. NEVER write that YOU saw or witnessed if you didn't. You can put that doctor, family, ER whatever was contacted as that is what YOU did. And as an incident report is a legal document you NEVER put the employees' names.

What I usually did was put a stickie note to the NM that "Mary" told me this.