Diverted pain meds

kbrn2002, ADN, RN · Mar 1

Did you simply not waste the meds as you and another nurse together should have or did you divert the meds? Were the meds still in the facility and accounted for? Last point, is the med in question the same med that you have a personal prescription for? None of that is at all clear from your post. If you simply did not waste, that could be considered an internal disciplinary action from your employer but not necessarily warranting BON involvement.

Depending on your work setting sometimes it can be difficult to find another nurse to waste the meds with you, I could see it slipping your mind if not done right away after being distracted by other work duties, but if those meds were still secured and counted at shift change they could always be wasted later when another staff was available.

But since you so readily agreed to self report instead of fighting this tooth and nail I'm guessing you likely did divert. Honestly rather you did or not as soon as the BON got involved it's likely to be a long process, ending with a monitoring program. Talk to an attorney about your options and best steps going forward.

subee, MSN, CRNA · Mar 3

Yes. You can work while being in the program. Working is part of your recovery process. You might not be allowed to handle narcotics on your previous unit, but you can exchange tasks with other nurses on the unit if they are willing to give your pain meds. There are definitely some recovery friendly specialties that don't involve narcotic administration which would hire you. You need to find other ways to treat your back pain besides Norco. If there is a back Yoga class in your area, take it. My experience was that nurses with back problems in my state's program, had more solid recoveries because they replaced yoga for narcotics in treating their pain.

Patricia Ordnung · Mar 6

There isn't a whole lot of information here. I guess my question is what happened to the narcs that weren't wasted?