nurse terminated

[grandee3]

I work at an LTAC in La. The other day my DON fired one of the daytime nurses because of a med error (at 2pm. )The nurse packed her stuff, gave report to the charge nurse and was walking off the unit when the DON started telling this nurse that if she leaves, the board would be notifed because it is patient abandonment. The nurse was extremely upset and crying! How can this DON expect this nurse to finish shift after she got fired? Can she do this?

[eldragon]

I am curious to find out what kind of med error warranted termination of the nurse?

It's hard to find good nurses, especially in long-term-care facilities. Med errors are common, at least in the place I work.

In fact, I turned myself in a few days ago when I realized I gave a pt 2 pain pills instead of 1, not knowing her order had been changed. Even though I was pretty sure the error would never be noticed, I still did the right thing and told my supervisor, who had me write a med error incident sheet. She signed it and that was that.

The patient can have two kinds of narcotic pain medicines at the same time - but I gave her two of the same kind. Luckily it was a low dose. And she is a "return customer" patient, so I distinctly remember her telling me whether or not she wanted "1" or "2" pills. But the order had been changed, and I made the error, and hopefully honesty is still the best policy.

[withasmilelpn]

Fired means fired, done, finished, caput. If that DON truly wanted her to finish her shift, she should've waited until shift change was over! I like the idea of a wrongful termination suit, that really appeals to me. At the very least if she talked to a lawyer, she could scare some much needed sense into this DON. Only in Nursing!