Co-worker stole my ID

Nurses General Nursing

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did you ever use someone elses idenity to steel narcotics form an acudose machine? How did it make you feel when you had to work with that nurse again that you stole her idenity from?

Thanks, Cattitude. Life IS better on this side.:yelclap: And trust me when I say that one must take it "one day at a time" :Melody: , 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year, 365 days...... you get my drift!!

And TazziRN, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for your words of encouragement. Right back at ya!!!!

's RN

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Specializes in ER, TRAUMA, MED-SURG.

Hey angels RN! I was SO glad to see your post! It's always GREAT to hear another success story. I hated to see the way you were treated, with the BS and false accusations of using (and with no UDS to back it up!!) and sleeping on the job. You sound like you handled it with grace, and that is hard to do. And the same thing happened to me, in August of last year. my husband and I had been working in the same facility, he as a day shift nsg sup. and me as a charge nurse on a busy medical-renal-pulmonary unit. Kind of you name it we got it type of floor. Well, my husband is also in recovery, and we both have over 6 years clean and sober. Anyway, I had had to put my 15 year old cocker/retriever dog to sleep, and took it really hard. He had been there through thick and thin, through 2 bad marriages and 1 good marriage(my current, of course!). and also through my using, fetting busted, and getting clean. Anyway, he ended a paraplegic and had to be put to sleep.

One physician that I had worked with for years and years asked me about him, we used to walk our dogs together. Well, ONE person happened to be walking by when I teared up telling him what happened to the dog, and gossip spread like wildfire. Eventually it got around that I was asking that doc (FALSELY, of course!!!) for rx in return for "something else". Well, I was off for 6 days and when I went back, I was called to administration. I insisted on an observed UDS, and sent home after that escorted out by the head of security. After 10 days off w/out pay, they called me to tell me it was negative, which I knew. Then I got fired anyway, and they threatened to report me to boards. For what, my question was. They did not have an answer. They fuinally did halfway ask me to come back, but NO WAY!!!

Like I said, long story, but I am so glad you posted and you are one of the proud - the recovering!!

Anne, RNC:balloons:

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I once heard that AA/NA is the club with the largest membership, but not one single member wanted to join.

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Specializes in ER, TRAUMA, MED-SURG.

Hello to all following the thread - kind of a sad note to my fellow recovering nurses. This afternoon after lunch I took my 9 year old son to the pool to swim. He and my 15 year old son have the bad habit of staying inside 24 plus hours playing video games and on the internet, so I try to at least motivate the younger to get a little sunshine and dirt therapy. I stopped to get a newspaper to entertain me while getting some sun.

I turned to the obits and scanned them, a habit since finishing nursing school, kind of morbid, I guess. Anyway, the first obit was a 42 year old female who passed away on Sat. Left a husband and 2 daughters at home.

She is one of my fellow addicts, that I have known since 1999. I did notice that within the last year she disappeared from the "recovery circuit", so to speak. I knew that she had gotten married and they had talked about moving out of state.

Needless to say when I saw the obit and that pic staring back at me, I got the most horrible chill down my spine. She had been a resident at a charity hospital when I met her, and not long after we met she was kicked out of school for forging rxs, and also medicaid fraud in getting the scripts filled. (Toradol po, of all things?). When seeing her in meetings, she told me that this was her second offense while there. She had also before that she had been a pharmacist and lost all that before medical school. I am not sure of the details, I don't know if she ODed, or maybe a MVA. I think she had been a trauma code -- my hubbie is one of the house sups at this hospital.

You just hate to see that, and it makes me so much more thankful that it was not me, but it could have been any of us anywhere. Hope I'm not rambling, but it just saddened me thinking of those 2 children.

Anne, RNC

P.S. Note to all my online rec. buddies, be strong because I don't want this to happen to any of you guys.:o

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I hated to see the way you were treated, with the BS and false accusations of using (and with no UDS to back it up!!) and sleeping on the job. You sound like you handled it with grace, and that is hard to do.

And the same thing happened to me, in August of last year.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I would have RUN to a very good lawyer before I would put up with being threatened with termination and not being allowed to submit a drug screen! I know there are some horror stories out there about nurses being mistreated by administration, but I just don't think I would argue with them, I would let a lawyer do it!

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Specializes in ER, TRAUMA, MED-SURG.

Hey, janet! Good question! I did call my attorney standing outside the administration offices standing with the security guard and one of the admin. type NM, or VP, or whatever she was, about dropped her teeth when she heard me talking to him on my cell phone. (I'm not 'sue-happy by any means, but hy husband and I had used our attorney the year before when his ex-wife tried to sue us for full custody of their 2 children; we have them full time, her husband is an active meth user, and had not been out of prison long, and she had been at the time an active pot smoker and various types of pills she had been collecting.(doctor-hopping). So, anyway, I had the number of the attorney in my cell phone book. He had a fit, and wanted to know the status, so to speak. I gave him a rundown, and this woman actually tried to take my cell phone out of my hand. She was stupid enough to do this while I was actually talking to him. Needless to say, he had a field day with all of it.

I did insist on a drug screen and my attorney handled everything for me. I knew that my drug screen was clean, and all i had to do was wait for his call. My husband also worked at this facility, and I knew I would not be back there. While I was waiting on the call, I interviewed for another job, gave them the whole story, did pre-hire stuff, including a UDS, which was also clean. I got the job as a charge nurse on a unit at another facility, with an hourly raise and a 2500 dollar sign on bonus. I told them the whole story and they laughed.

Long story short, my attorney worked out a deal with the idiots at the other facility and if we didn't sue, I got a REALLY nice letter of reference. They offered me my job back but I wasn't about to go back there. I talked to my husband and we together decided not to take legal action because he still worked there. He had been there for more than 15 years, and I didn't want to rock the boat for him. He did offer to leave with me, but I didn't ask him to. My attorney let the facility know how long he had to take them to court if they gave me a poor reference. He had threatened to have the woman in the hall arrested when she tried to take my cell phone. This mgr was "bone-stupid", excuse the expression.

I just really hated to make waves for the husband, and I got what I wanted. Different job, better hours, more money, and nice sign on bonus. The attorney also made the facility write off a few BIG hospital bills that I had incurred with my BP being in the range of 210 over 130 and bigeminy and trigeminy. It worked out for us, and I believe in karma. I wasted too long wishing for bad things to happen to people like that.

Anne, RNC

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Specializes in ER OB NICU.

This is a hard topic for me, as I have experienced the emotional trauma of being the victim of an alcoholic, who almost cost me my career, when he spent the day in a bar, added a few narcs, and drove home, totaling my car, hitting me head on in my lane of traffice after dark with no lights on. Basically, I have spent 5 years trying to get to the point I can go back to work as House Supervisor, not what I do now, more like office work,but nursing, in its title.

I did turn in a young nurse, as I was charging ICU,when all of a sudden, I was ordereing narcotics, daily, when before I could go a week most of the time. In addition, things never added up. I had a patient who was so out of it, I was afraid to give him much medication at all, and supposedly on nights she gave him big injections of demerol, ativan, etc. But I doubted it. Then I was checking, and found that a patient on tele ( who used our narcs) had his MS dc'd at around 8 pm on rounds, and she supposedely gave him a dose after 10. Another was a deaf and dumb patient, whose wife never left his side,and had a PCA, with orders to adjust if necessary, and did have breakthrough meds ordered, but this nurse was the only one who gave him three doses during the night. I actually went to check if he needed the PCA adjusted, as he was supposedly requireing so many boluses, and asked his wife, to aske him about his pain and if it was controlled, She said Yes, and I asked what happened about the increased pain requiring more meds, and she kept saying, NO NO He is doing great, he just pushes his button. I did not want to set off suspicions in any patients, so just sort of checked around. Then I saw the same nurse come out of the BR, and she had a blood spot onher pants about mid thigh. And another RN came to me and said they bumped into her, and she had a syringe in her pocket, immediately prior to theBR incident,and she said it was a saline flush. Unfortunately, she had just returned to work following the SIDS death of her newborn daughter. They did drug test her, and supposedly, according to unit director, she tested for Darvocet, ativan and some other thing she had scripts for. BUT I was never sure whether she was diverting for money, the director or what, I just knew she was in trouble. I also had heard nurses talking about the director asking different nurses about pain meds, and if the had any extra or with them, as she had lupus, and needed meds. In addition, she had a script she secured from one of the drs. there, and used a 30 tab script in two days. That speaks for iteself, usually. BUT she was not the one who was giving all the different meds.I did not see the nurse (D>) after she left the unit, but two years later read of an incident in our nursing newletter from BON, and another year or so later, she lost her license. I have never felt bad about reporting these suspicions. But have always hoped it was handled in a manner that hoped to help her. It was amazing to me that the pharmacy never caught any of this, probably don't really check them well.

Another time I came on as House Sup, and found that the pharmacist had decided to mix a 1000cc bag with morphine for a drip, rather than use PCA, as he thought they were too expensive. Naturally, no control, over this, so I asked the nurse to pull it, and save it for me, I needed to turn it in. The lady died in the meantime,and when I went to retrieve the bag, it was supposedly wasted by two nurses. DON was not happy.

Opportunity is available no matter what precautions are taken. We also have to trust each other, so the trust issue is a problem. I don't judge my patients,and am an advocate for their pain control,be it emotional or physical. I do not judge fellow nurses. I don't have a problem with those in recovery, in fact applaud them. BUT my weakness is I can't stand the alcoholics, be they patients,friends,family, etc. I work on it and try to view it as a disease,but simply have a very difficult time, due to the personal involvement with one taking my career, and one , in my family, ruining so any people's lives. I do hope I can overcome this,but it is my personal demon to be able to see it as a disease. So I guess I can understand the problem some have saying "anybody can quit if they want, they do it to themselves."

Taking licenses and not offereing the opportunity to rehab is not right, and would, as mentioned, only contribute to the shortage we already have. In fact, having never been to a meeting, I would bet anybody who did go to one, would meet somebody they knew, and yet did not really "know about their recovery".

More than the sober recovering nurses, I worry more about who we will lose,now that our state seems to see the credit score of each nurse as the barrier between her and the job she seeks. What could it have to do with her nursing expertise. I guess this might be equivalent to some sort of management issue, but really, finances could be knocked out by many many situations unrelated to a personal management issue. I had no idea that it was even part of a job application, until a colleague told me that she had recently applied for a new job, and was asked to sign that they could read her credit report.

It is too bad that each individual is not welcomed for their strenghts, experience, and resolve. There will always be somebody who makes a mistake,intentionally or not, who will pave the way for some new requirment we all will be required to meet.

Sometime,people get careless and caught as a way of seeking help. We cannot punish those who ask for help, it makes no sense. But once it is offered we must appreciate those who have the self conviction to accomplish on their own.

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Dependency is an illness. Interventions and programs do work. I recently lost a cousin to lung cancer. One of his proudest accomplishments was his 23 years of sobriety. His story touched every local AA club he spoke at. One of the greatest gifts he gave me was helping my dad get sober for the last 11 years of his life.

Recovery works when people work it. The last thing that should be done to a person who is in recovery is to take their livelihood away.

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Recovery works when people work it.

And that, my friends, is the key.......

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Not tooting my own horn, but I have been asked to various GA meetings over the years (I went to GA for about three years as part of my recovery) to tell them my story. Some people don't beleive that gambling is an addiction. That, I think, is one of the reasons that I was so devistated about being accused of taking drugs and sleeping. I KNOW about addiction.

Thank you for your very kind words, ALL of you!! Right back at ya!

's RN

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Wow....thanks for the support, Tee. You just took my 13 years of hard-earned sobriety and slapped me in the face with it, along with every other nurse in recovery. Why single out nurses? Why not doctors and dentists and teachers and cops and members of every other people-helping profession? But, since you singled out nurses, guess what? Take away all of our licenses and you'll never see the inside of your house again. Know why?

BECAUSE THERE ARE MORE OF US THAN YOU REALIZE!!!

You have my respect in that you have recovered. I have seen nurses that do not recover. As I am sure you have too. I do not believe you are correct in suggesting that there would be so few nurses that they would never see the inside of their house again. Yes there are no doubt more than we realize. But your suggestion implies that you still are rationalizing. Just an observation.:chair:

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Specializes in Lie detection.
You have my respect in that you have recovered. I have seen nurses that do not recover. As I am sure you have too. I do not believe you are correct in suggesting that there would be so few nurses that they would never see the inside of their house again. Yes there are no doubt more than we realize. But your suggestion implies that you still are rationalizing. Just an observation.:chair:

The poster who Tazzi was responding to has made it quite clear in many posts his disdain and disgust for recovering nurses. So when pushed, we pushed back and that's what Tazzi did. I back her as I am recovering too.

There ARE a lot of us, not only nurses but many health professionals. Tazzi's point was that the idea should not be to punish FOREVER as in remand of license permanently as one poster seems to demand.:trout:

I don't see where she's rationalizing?

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