Maybe HR Won’t Notice My Accusation, ha, ha?

Guest1130774 · Oct 19, 2019

It's a shame the BON would go after someone for a DUI. We're nurses. We're overworked, burnt out, and losing our minds. We drink, smoke, do drugs, and live an unhealthy lifestyle. It's the only way to cope with it. It has gotten so bad, that all employers have to put in a mandatory new employee message that help is available for any nurse who falls down that rabbit hole.

Is help available? Hells no. You report yourself to the BON, you lose your license.

The only thing they're succeeding in is driving nurses to distrust. I wouldn't report myself for a DUI. After what you said, now I will tell my colleagues to never report anything to them either.

I think nurses who are caught with drugs and alcohol need help, not probation. We're in the business of caring. Apparently, the BON is in the business of getting attorney fees.

catsmeow1972, BSN, RN · Oct 20, 2019

12 hours ago, Anthony O said:
It's a shame the BON would go after someone for a DUI. We're nurses. We're overworked, burnt out, and losing our minds. We drink, smoke, do drugs, and live an unhealthy lifestyle. It's the only way to cope with it. It has gotten so bad, that all employers have to put in a mandatory new employee message that help is available for any nurse who falls down that rabbit hole.
Is help available? Hells no. You report yourself to the BON, you lose your license.
The only thing they're succeeding in is driving nurses to distrust. I wouldn't report myself for a DUI. After what you said, now I will tell my colleagues to never report anything to them either.
I think nurses who are caught with drugs and alcohol need help, not probation. We're in the business of caring. Apparently, the BON is in the business of getting attorney fees.

I think the issue is less with the BONs and more with the fact that many of these programs are outsourced to 3rd party, frequently for-profit companies. BON sees a nurse that has a dui, SUD issues or mental health issues? Shunt them to the program, wash hands of it and done. The program (for profit, remember) is then free to stomp said nurse into mush, financially ruin and plain punish for the crime of being human, without oversight. It seems that DUIs comprise a sizable portion of program victims. Why is a dumb move, occurring on a persons personal time, fodder for ruining a career? Said person likely has already paid their dues via the criminal justice system. Where does any program get off appointing themselves to punish again? Don’t get me wrong, The BONs are still complicit in this by ignorantly shunting people to these programs regardless of the issue that brought them to their attention, but not because they make money but because it’s an easy ‘solution.’

Inshock · Oct 20, 2019

Oh .... I think there should be a whole system overhaul with the regulations and how they are dealt with.... I am a very poor person and if I had the means the bon would know me and there would be changes with everything in nursing... I have bipolar and was revoked for 8 years due to mental impairment ... I went to three evaluations and was declared to be ok however things don’t run the way I think they should

Guest1130774 · Oct 20, 2019

7 hours ago, Inshock said:
Oh .... I think there should be a whole system overhaul with the regulations and how they are dealt with.... I am a very poor person and if I had the means the bon would know me and there would be changes with everything in nursing... I have bipolar and was revoked for 8 years due to mental impairment ... I went to three evaluations and was declared to be ok however things don’t run the way I think they should

What gets me is what they've done to dmstanl1 doesn't seem evidence-based. Is this the best course of action? We have a nursing shortage, we're all burnt out, and one of our own needs help. He got a DUI and should probably go for counseling or rehabilitation. Instead, they're going after him and his license. This is retribution. They're punishing him without any regard to what the best course of action is based on evidence.

How could we do something about it? I want to see people get in there who will make changes and help the nurses they represent.

Inshock · Oct 20, 2019

I’m searching for answers with this whole system also .... I just know usually know these people are usually so innoncent ..... I’m not scared of trying to deal or manage with any one ..... some people cannot be managed I .... I’m honsetly a happy person however being locked out of healthcare jobs isn’t something that I think is fair either.... I think the individuals should have the option to chose employment in places they choose until a sojltion can be found for them

Inshock · Oct 20, 2019

I’m sure all careers have a down side however

I just don’t know if further education is what remedies soultions to these people either

3ringnursing, BSN · Oct 21, 2019

When I was 27 years old, and several months into being a new grad I enrolled in the CANDO school of hard knocks (Chemically Addicted Nurses Diversion Option, although now it is called Alternative To Discipline: ATD) having signed my life away to the SBON in October 1994 for the privilege of continuing to practice nursing. In the early 90's the average person had no home computer (and I never was fluent in DOS anyway) or cellphones - we just barely had caller ID then, but what little technology we did have enabled me to create a special ring for Sonora Quest labs so I knew if they called me randomly (typically way too early for someone who might have a day off once in a while and decided to put it to good use sleeping in for a change) instead of work asking me to come in due to a call off by a coworker. We did everything in pen and paper format back then and sweated it all - but it wasn't nearly half as intense nor as expensive as it now seems for a nurse in recovery from what I am reading here and from others on this site.

I started every week day morning after 0600 by calling the lab waiting for the color blue as the color of the day so I could pay $50.00 I didn't have to pee in a cup. You had until 1700 - and woe to you if you missed it.

What I do remember are not happy memories: having this supervisor or that head of a nurse recovery meeting signing my forms and feeling like a child mailing them in to the SBON every month. Getting calls from Sonora Quest for a random drop while at work as I struggled to set up for a swan ganz catheter, or monitor a balloon pump while juggling to keep my patient load afloat - who would agree to watch my patients while I was gone for a monitored pee? Worrying, because starving I ate the last muffin left (poppy seed) at work and would it come up positive for opiates in my UDS? Missing My 10 year wedding anniversary to be at state board mandated recovery therapy. My husband telling reprobate me how I screwed up royal (as if I didn't know that). Going to therapy in a group and telling my story to strangers in sessions as well as people at work because no hiding it allowed - acting the part of being contrite and meaning it, for I was "bad" and seeking redemption. Oh yeah ... Fun times.

Don't get me wrong - I wasn't innocent, and those drugs didn't divert themselves, but I had my reasons as we all do. The untimely death of my mother hit me in a big way, like a nuclear bomb detonating in my lap, so I felt pretty lucky to still be alive too when the **** didn't so much as hit the fan, but bury it. Still, I wasn't blameless, and I then had the price to pay, XXX XXXXXX.

I spent 3 years of my life under the microscope, but it felt like 100.

They didn't want to grant me stepdown, but they did. And when my time was up they hemmed and hawed about letting me go - but they had no choice, and let me go they did. I had toed every line - crossed single every T, and dotted every last I. It wasn't actually a victory for me - I viewed it as more of a draw on both sides. Then I slipped away into obscurity for good, swearing an unbreakable oath to myself that they would never, ever have me to toy with again.

23 years later after "graduating" from CANDO (this month in fact) I have since avoided further scrutiny from the SBON, and I am careful, so very, very careful - because that is what it taught us all and what I learned to be (and if nothing else I was cultivated to be a diligent student). I am outwardly the blandest of the bland - if I were a spice I'd be air. No one gives boring me even a second glance any more, or guesses what wild, sordid history my past entails because it was not documented for anyone else to see once I finished because that part is true. My file is likely buried in a box in some obscure warehouse along side the Arc of the Covenant and that is just fine by me.

My long winded point? There is a light at the end of the tunnel that is not a train acomin'. There is an end eventually and once you reach it you are free. Financially poorer - true, but infinitely wiser. You will get there, and eventually you will cheer someone else on to reach that damn finish line.

dagobah, ASN, BSN, MSN, RN · Oct 22, 2019

Just wanted to write that I'm rooting for you. All of us are in some way. ?