Published
Naw, You don't need malpractice insurance. Why just the other day an administrator type person told me that if anything happened the facility would back me up. I felt so much better knowing that the corporation was behind it's staff like that.
-Russell
My medical malpractise attorney friend told me not to carry it. It makes you a target..."the deep pocket theory" or otherwise know as "flies are drawn to shyt." plantiff attorneys follow the money. Good thing I am always broke, but I am still deciding when and if to carry. One of these years, I' ll make up my mind.
I just got malpractice insurance a couple of weeks ago. I'm a new grad nurse working in ICU, and we make a lot of quick, life-saving decisions that could be called "practicing medicine without a license" if the hospital and/or MD decided to hang me out to dry if a patient died and we were sued. The hospital only covers you if you are performing within the duties of your job. So if my patient's pressure hits the 40s, and I try to contact the MD, and I can't get in touch with him/her, and I start dopamine (or levophed, or whatever), I have practiced medicine without a license. Now, in my opinion, it would be better for me to support the patient's pressure rather than wait for him/her to code, then use my ACLS training to save his/her life. You know, prevent problems. But if there was a bad outcome (pt died anyway) and the hospital got sued, I know they'd hang me out to dry so fast it would make my head spin. Not something I'd want to lose my house, property and 401K over.
Kasey Keefe
5 Posts
Do you think that registered nurses should carry their own malpractice insurance?