Can you be kicked out of nursing school for...

Nurses General Nursing

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Hi!

Ive never been on allnurse.com before. I am a regular on a craigslist.org forum. A number of us have been wondering...we have a regular who claims that he was kicked out of nursing school because of an internet post he made that violated patient confidentiality. Said that there was no names mentioned, but that enough details were in it about a situation that his school kicked him out, with only a few weeks to go till he would graduate. Is this possibly true? Wouldnt they have to supena internet posts? Thanks for your time.

I have posted this before...I don't think it was a truthful statement.

Let's say that a professor read a post where she THOUGHT she recognized the patient...she would.

1. Have to figure out WHICH of her students used allnurses.com.

2. She would have to match the screen name with that student.

3. She would have to prove that the screen name was associated with her home state.

4. And her school.

5. And her nursing program.

6. Worked that particular day in clinicals.

7. Worked with that particular patient.

That is IMPOSSIBLE to do on your own, unless a MALE patient (who was the only one in a program) said, " Oh yeah, I was working at Acme General Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia yesterday morning and was assigned to a female HIV patient."

Then you could very QUICKLY narrow that down...especially if there was only one school doing clinicals that day.

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GO TO A UNIVERSITY LIBRARY AND LOG ONTO SEARCH ENGINE FOR WESTLAW AND OTHER NURSING SITES OR STUDENT SITES... CONFIDENTIALITY IS A MAJOR ISSUE, EVN ON THE INTERNET. CONTACT A STUDENT GOVERNMEN ASOCITON, THE ANA AND /OR A LABOR LAW REP IN YUR AREA AND GET SOMEONE TO ADVOCATE FOR YOU. THERE IS A WHOLE LEGAL, ETHICAL, & MORAL PRCESS STUDENTS CAN BE HELD ACCOUNTIBLE AND RESPONSIBLE FOR DEP ON THE SCHOOL & FACILITY'S POLICIES AND LEGAL PROTOCOLS. tHERE SHOULD BE A PROFESSOR OR INSTRUCTOR/MENTOR WHO YOU CAN GO TO FOR ADVICE. dON;T THINK IT IS NOTHING... CONFIDENTIALITY IS A SERIOUS INFRACTION. YOU MAY NEED A GOOD ATTORNEY.

Telling a story on a public message board with literally thousands of members where a "story" about a patient can be in a sea of millions of hospitalized patients, is NOT the same thing as two students discussing a patient's condition INSIDE the facility, where it is very probable that there is only ONE patient in that hospital that shares that condition.

That isn't what HIPAA was designed to do, and I think too many of so-called "HIPAA experts" are going overboard.

HIPAA works absolutely no differently than privacy laws that govern financial institutions. HIPAA covers healthcare, privacy laws cover everything else.

What HIPAA was created for, is so a patient that has an odd condition doesn't become "the talk" of a hospital or practice, that friends and family of employees doesn't know about it, so people just can't call at random and get details on a patient's condition (when the patient doesn't want anyone to know), where a patient's employer has limited information so they don't have to worry about losing their job, etc. To protect snooping employees from looking up labs/reports on neighbors, people they didn't like, leaking information to the media on celebrities, etc.

THAT is what HIPAA is designed to do. Hospitals used to be left to create their own privacy guidelines but it was discovered that it was neither legally enforceable nor was being followed....the gov't only steps in when an industry cannot regulate itself.

If one of my professors (and they know I use allnurses.com) saw a post on here and asked me about it....I am also under no legal obligation to be truthful about it. I would simply deny making the post.

Unless they school is going to get a court order (which it is very, very doubtful with the vastness of allnurses.com would happen) on a "hunch".

HIPAA wasn't designed to make people walk on eggshells or make students feel like they couldn't ask a question about a patient...HIPAA SPECIFICALLY exempts healthcare students, in this regard.

Does an entire class need to see a patient profile? Absolutely not...but does a student need to be able to freely discuss it with her professor? Yes she does.

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Thank you all for the info. He didnt post it to all nurse. I just thought you all would know if it was true or not.

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The post you refer to is the one where a person had their real name online. Bad idea.

And yes, I can see how a person could get kicked out of nursing school for violating privacy.

Just an aside . . . . . this is the only BB I frequent (well, one cooking and wine blog but that is different) . . .and the profanity is a bit shocking on craigslist . .. . just not used to it.

We have a nicely moderated board here. :bow:

steph

Thank you all for the info. He didnt post it to allnurse.com. I just thought you would know if this could possibley be true.
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JACQUI, in the USA this is not just a hospital/school rule it is a law with teeth in it...he was lucky to get by with being kicked out of school as far as i know students are not covered by union

if he has any transferable credits he should try and get accepted by another school...the current school probably would not be able to state the reason for dismissal because it seems that he was not prosecuted, probably allowed to resign

he was complaining about someone turning him in to school but he probably was bragging about what he did and because he has his own name on it he couldn't very well deny it

bottom line is that a patient has a reasonable right to expect that his condition would not be put on internet sites

and no one forced him to put this on site, he should blame himself and not fellow student

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