nurse with RN/LPN licenses

[skay]

If a RN working as an LPN gets sued the court I assume would go after her under her RN license. The problem I have is if the Nurse was never trained in the RN role can the hospital and/or manager be held accountable in any way for the nurses actions providing she was within her scope of practice as a LPN? Why would she be sued against her RN license since she is working as an LPN ?

Background info: the nurse graduated as a RN while working as a LPN. The nurse does not want to accept less than a fulltime postion as a RN nor work a night shift and wants to stay on the unit she has been working. Therefore, the nurse maintains a LPN liscence to keep her position. The nurse performs the job duties of a LPN and gets the pay rate of a LPN and is resourced by a RN. She signs orders as a RN. Looking for some legal opinions on this situation. Thanks

[elkpark]

I'm not sure what you could mean by "never trained in the RN role" -- it sounds like you're saying the person has an RN license as well as an LPN license, and the person would have had to graduate from a state-approved school of nursing in order to be eligible for RN licensure, so, if s/he has an RN license, s/he has "been trained in the RN role."

[skay]

Sorry. Yes the nurse was trained as a RN. What I should have said was the nurse has not been oriented as a RN in the hospital he/she works.

[ZASHAGALKA, RN]

You are accountable to your highest level of education and authority. An RN cannot claim to be functioning in an 'LVN/LPN' capacity, absent the education and training that went into licensure as an RN.

An RN would be held accountable to the standard of an RN, regardless what other healthcare job s/he worked. For instance, I have been asked from time to time, as an RN, to function as a CNA because she was out and the RNs were overstaffed. That's fine, but that does not make me a CNA. If I note a critical assessment - even on somebody else's assigned pt - and fail to act, I am still accountable in my capacity, knowledge, and skill as an RN.

S/he may be working in an LVN position, and might even still have an LVN license, but legally, s/he is an RN - and accountable on that level.

I would think that any attempt to convince a jury that an RN shouldn't be held to the standard of an RN would not engender trust among those jurors. It sounds like an attempt to avoid responsibility.

~faith,

Timothy.