Reasons for getting fired as a nurse?

Nurses General Nursing

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What are some reasons for getting fired as a RN? Ex) if you make a med error, do you lose your RN license?

Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
What are some reasons for getting fired as a RN? Ex) if you make a med error, do you lose your RN license?

Soldier nurse covered the top reasons for getting fired. As for losing your license -- one simple med error will not do it. The only nurses I've seen losing their licenses over "med errors" were the ones who were signing out narcotics for patients and dosing themselves instead.

I suppose if there were a pattern of frequent and fatal drug errors, you'd be on shaky ground, but as long as you're reasonably safe and prudent it shouldn't be an issue.

Specializes in Pedi.
What are some reasons for getting fired as a RN? Ex) if you make a med error, do you lose your RN license?

Unless it's something so egregious that the BoN could conclude that no safe nurse would make that mistake... like you push 100 mEq of KCl... a med error is not going to cause you to lose your license. I recall hearing a story once of a nurse who attempted to push phenobarbital elixir (which is obviously not meant for IV administration) IV. That nurse was fired but don't know if he/she was disciplined by the BoN.

I've seen nurses get fired for repeated call outs, being chronically late to their shifts, falsifying documentation or failing to document, not showing up to work without calling... basically a lot of the things you'd see someone in any profession get fired for.

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