oneof5

Cyber Security

I have been a nurse for 20 years. I have done ICU, PACU, PreOp. I did travel nursing in Trauma ICU and PACU. I eventually ended up at the wrong place after 2 years of traveling. If someone wants to accuse you of something and report you to the BRN, they don't have to prove a thing and you have everything to lose. The board may hear your side but they don't take your side. They will take the side of the accuser every time, no questions asked. I am leaving nursing to persue a career in computers, particularly Cyber Security. I really like the job that I do now in PreOp but I don't like what other nurses have done to me and what the Boards of Nursing did. What one does, they all follow suit until one of them eventually decides they are the one to take your license. I have stood back and watched how these nurses, who I currently work with, berate and belittle others, especially ones that are new. There is no give in their relentless taunting. They may not do it to that nurses face but I see it. Looking back, I have seen it for 20 years, day in and day out. Now you may say that that is life, but I say that is a culture of bullying and administrators put up with it and never do a thing. In fact they engage in it themselves. I never saw it before because I wasn't the victim.....until I was the victim. I get along with the people that I work with but being falsely accused and bullied, left a bad taste in my mouth. My eyes have been opened and I decided it was time to exit right and put all of this nightmare behind me. I have no faith in the profession or the board that governs it.

When formal charges are brought against your license, in TN, it is not public until the board rules. When Ca brought charges against my license they made it Public the day they brought the charges up. So just because you don't see it on Nursys, doesn't mean they are doing it. I would be shocked if they don't. To be clear, MY licensed wasn't reprimanded because of what I was warning about. I just found it out in the Ethics class. Just because you ARE grown up, take responsibility, work hard, do your job and do it well even while working short, doesn't mean someone can lie about you and cause you to lose your license. Take that right there, to heart!!! It can happen and it did happen to me. Even when I had about 20 letters of support from doctors, fellow co-workers, and former managers.

LOVE this and all of the other comments that help the rest of us who have had misgivings or never had that "calling" or "love" of nursing. I say if you want to go back to school or can, to do something else. Do it. I am 53 years old and am in my first semester of a new career. I-am-leaving-nursing!

All of this was tragic for the nurse and for the family. She most certainly shouldn't be charged. No one else in that facility that lent to the mistake was charged. They basically threw her under the bus. I don't even think she should have her license taken away, but I suspect she doesn't want it anyway. If you never have had to deal with the BON, I hope you don't. Just to let you and EVERYONE on here know, the above comments can get you sanctioned by the BON for Unprofessionalism. I have been dealing with the BON for the past two years and am getting ready to lose my ability to practice. Not because my own state BON won't let me practice but because they REPRIMANDED my license and I have a Ca license. I never practiced in that state and was going to let my license go, but because it is still active and they have the right to formally charge my license and because I refuse to jump through their ridiculous requirements, I am having to surrender my license. How does that affect me here at my job? OIG. For my state BON, I had to take an ethics class and one of the things that I found out in that class was, the above posting can cause you to lose your license, at the very least, reprimanded. I went into that class very angry that I had to be there, this was all because of lies that were concocted to get me fired at a hospital. BON's don't really investigate unless you contest it and since they have the unlimited funds of taxpayer dollars you don't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning. The are going to do "something" to your license reprimand to suspend. Just like in this nurses case at Vanderbilt, no one is holding the hospital accountable for this. It is ALL on the nurse. The BON did not hold the hospital accountable for the lies that they told, they just accepted them as proof. The hospital didn't have to show any proof of what they were alleging. I walked into that Ethics class angry and thinking of leaving nursing. I walked out determined to leave nursing. I signed up for readmission to college the very next week. I am glad I did, because it is getting readto all go down the tubes. All of this has left a bad taste in my mouth for what can happen to you as a nurse and how there is no consequences to the employer. My message here is, be careful what you say, most certainly be careful what you do and most definitely be careful what you post online. The take away that I got from that ethics class was, your personal life and thoughts are not your own. It doesn't matter if you are on the clock. The governmental overreach that the BON and Medial Board is mind boggling.

I had a patient in PACU after surgery tell me that her toe was itching, that she had a toenail fungus and wanted me to take a needle and scratch under her toenail. I told her that I could not do it, that it could cause her bigger problems than she had at the moment. After she left, she reported me. It was a hospital that had signs everywhere asking if the patients had had a 5 star experience. Thank God when I got called in to answer for myself, (of course her complaint was that I was rude), I told my side of the story and it was dropped.

I asked and was told by the cashier it was because of handling money. I rarely see them handle money, most people use a Debit/Credit card. Idk.

If your lucky, they will just fire you and not make up a story and report it to the BON like was done to me. Now $$K later, I am still dealing with it and will in every state that I am licensed in. This is all thanks to the BON will not investigate unless you go to court over it and the BON TELLS you that the outcome will be worse, with stiffer penalties and higher costs. So they bully you into not taking it to court. It is a messed up system, for sure!!! I am meeting with a college advisor this week, I am getting out of nursing!

I am going to tell you why we use so many narcotics, particularly Dilaudid. HCAP scores. The biggest downturn in scores is "pain isn't adequately controlled" Adequately to patients means "NO PAIN". So since reimbursements depends on scores and surveys, then if you aren't bringing out the big guns on pain control then you aren't getting paid. Thanks Joint Commission for making pain a vital sign. Patients will tell you that their pain is a 10, right before they respiratory arrest. I have worked PACU for 15 years! Patients aren't educated enough on what to expect from pain after a surgery. If doctors tell patients that they are going to have pain after surgery, if it is an elected surgery, they won't have it. We are a give me society and a no pain society. I will tell you this, the new laws that they have enacted in Tennessee about narcotic dispensing should be a crack down on all this pill mill crap. If you ask for a 2nd pain pill prescription after the original supply given after surgery, then you have to enroll in a pain clinic contract. All patients getting more than a 3 day supply of narcotics have to sign a contract with the facility that they are aware of the side affects and potential problems and that they don't have multiple narcotic prescriptions already. The doctors can look in a data base prior to giving a narcotic prescription to see if the patient has had a recent prescription. If they have, hopefully they won't give another. It is a big problem and everyone suffers. Boy do I have a book of stories that would cover this topic.

I was falsely accused of drug diversion. I was on a travel contract this past Spring and the whole assignment and staff was like being in an awful, awful nightmare. I was accused of drug diversion and fired by both the hospital and my travel company. I just got a letter today from the BON Assistant Attorney General, offering me a settlement of REPRIMAND for pleading guilty OR being formally charged by the Board and going to trial which my lawyers says, acts as the jury. So basically they ARE Judge, Jury and Executioner. My husband wants me to go back to school and get OUT of nursing but I am 52 yrs old!!!! I should be preparing for retirement not taking on more school debt. This is INSANE!!!!! I had letters from former colleagues, managers and my doctor basically saying this was insane and all that I have read on these boards is that once your name is sent to the BON, you will be found guilty of something and reprimand is the least of them all and look at this, you or I or anyone else won't be able to get a job. Where I was working KNEW I was not guilty of this, they KNEW their computer charting system was glitchy and unreliable. They KNEW that it dropped orders and lost charting, everyone there complained about it. The ENTIRE place was a hostile work environment. Like one of my colleagues told me, they want to give you a public reprimand but they NEVER put on your license all the good that you have done over the years. They never say how much $#!+ you put up with patients and other bullying staff and doctors and administration. This is NOT supposed to be how it works but this is government for you!!!!! This was done to me by a system that owns half of the hospitals in Tennessee and in half the states in the whole country. It would be nearly impossible to get a license in another state now and the ones that I do have in other states, will do the same. It won't matter anyone, no one will hire me. It has been heartbreaking and exhausting. I don't even want to be a nurse anymore. I don't want to care for anyone or about anyone, because no job has ever care about me.

Yes, I have heard that one a TON! But they always have a story to tell about how bad it was last time and how the 'Head Nurse" had to come in and start it. Well I started telling patients that I was "Head Nurse" when someone came to me and asked me to try an IV that they couldn't get. Before everyone goes ballistic over me saying that, we didn't have head nurses or charge nurses at the surgery center where I worked. Even my manager thought it was funny.

You are correct! It has become a cultural issue. My stepdaughter refuses to potty train our granddaughter and she turns 4 in a few months. My husband has jumped on her several times and asked her how she is going to go to school wearing diapers and she just replied that she would be potty trained before then. How? On her own? It is LAZY parents!!! All 3 of my children started potty training when they turned 2 and was fully trained in a few weeks. L-A-Z-Y parents and then they produce lazy children.

http://www.Travelnursecentral.com You can leave feedback on hospitals on there. If the hospital isn't listed, add it. You don't have to be a travel nurse to do it and you remain anonymous. I urge everyone on here that has had a problem with a hospital falsely accusing you of something, rate them on this website. You can bet your bottom dollar that I rated the hospital that falsely accused me of this. If anyone wants the name of that hospital, I will gladly give it to them. I think hospitals need their cages rattled as well. There is no consequences to hospitals for falsely accusing people and they stand up and poke their chests out and beat on it like a gorilla, proud that they report nurses to the BON! Nursing has become ridiculous!!!

That is why when I am done with my current assignment, I am leaving bedside nursing. Amen to your post! This is what I have been saying for months. When people hear my story they say, "Well surely the truth will come out and you will be exonerated". Uh have you seen how hospitals act during JACHO visits? It becomes a completely different hospital and when they are gone, practices go back to the way the were for a few more years. Everything a hospital does can be changed to look pristine in the eyes of an investigator. I completely agree that hospitals should be forced to undergo the same when reporting a nurse falsely or over ridiculous charges. I am angry at hospital corporations for throwing the nurse under the bus at all costs to the nurse and her career, for ridiculous charges. I am angry at fellow nurses who would do the same just to move up the ladder. I am over it.

I am sorry, I don't see your response to someone else.