Jon12309

What I meant was more along the lines of it should become a universal thing where there are criminal charges or not along with the hefty cost of the ATD programs. I've met many nurses who got 2 or 3 initial felony charges for a couple norcos, then one guy who gets pretrial diversion for one felony. Some people's lives get ruined and some don't by the criminal aspect. Yes, there is a universal like approach when it comes to states administrative disciplinary programs. It shouldn't be that some get plastered on the news and some shouldn't. Some people's consequential paths are more fostering to a recovery than others. I think no criminal charges for one person and then another person charges and news publicity make it ten fold worse. Throw the likelihood of some type of underlying mental health issue (commonly depression) into the equation with publicity, and now I bet your depression is way worse. I just think across he entire spectrum it should be handled in a more consistent fashion.

What type of universally systemic approach should be given to nurses with a history of discipline due to drug diversion? As a recovering nurse, I have seen and heard many stories in my short journey back into my intended career path. I am also baffled by several aspects of the downfall and reintegration of a recovering nurse. I've seen, with specifically narcotic diversion, a wide array of penalties and pathways back to the profession. For simplistic reasons, let's just say a nurse took opiate pills and/or intravenous opiate medications. Some nurses are arrested on the spot and charged with two level 6 felonies and a class A misdemeanor. The plea deals and outcomes from this range from being booked and decided on one level 6 felony, to pre trial diversion and dropping of all criminal charges. Then comes the licensing board. You are afforded the opportunity to join an alternative to discipline program which mandates an assessment as well as some type of rehab program. With the likely suspension of license and later probation, comes the "blacklisting" of your name in the National Practitioners Data Bank. Your public litigation files will forever be viewable to any who want to dig into your history. You must also disclose your litigation documents to all future employers and interviews for jobs/furthering education applications. Some people think all nurses who commit drug diversion should go to prison just like everyone else. They think the punishment should be maximized as medical professions, we are held to a higher standard. What I don't think people understand, is how tough the road back to practice is. You see opportunity, what you don't see is the financial and emotional toll of facing everyone from that day forward. I for one, can tell you the road back in tough. Everyone has their own reasons for doing what they did. Some nurses truly have been addicted your years. Some just started slipping drugs to take an edge of some part of their personal lives. I hardly knew of anyone who joined the profession just to gain access to drugs, nor did anyone want to end up in the monitored lifestyle. Monitoring program-drug tests 16x42x3 years=$2,016 IOP Treatment Deduectable-$2,000 Board Attorney=$4,100 Criminal Attorney (If applicable)-$1,500-$4,000 (local quotes) Lost Wages- 1 Year Suspension $60,000-$100,000 2 Year $120,000-$200,000 Possible Restitution if applicable This is all the financial consequences. Many nurses have to leave the profession temporarily and take a huge pay cut, I managed to find myself a $45,000 job during downtime. The emotional toll is greater. You have to face pretty much everyone from that day forward and explain why you aren't working where u used to or why you don't drink anymore. You have to make the public appearances at the board hearings and settlement conferences. You have to disclose your documents to everyone forever onward. You may not be able to apply for any type of advanced practice degree with the stamp of a disciplinary history (Good luck selling yourself to an interview panel, can be done though). Some are arrested and plastered on the local news. People will act different around you like if they say or do something, you will snap and off on some huge relapse bender, when really it's not like that. For some it may, but the point is people will always see you differently. Only you really know what happened, how to make it not happen, and what the reality of it all is. Some people lose their families/friends/homes/cars from the loss of employment and getting behind on bills. The question is, what do you think should happen to nurses who divert? Some say, punish them to the ends of the Earth, some say you make them go to an ATD program. Some say you arrest them too. Should they be afforded another opportunity, or should there be a one strike you're out system?

I would like to preface this article by saying I am in no way shape or form intending to spark a debate about if nurses in recovery from substance abuse should be afforded the opportunity to return to practice, but rather how wrong I think it is to have found how inconsistent the path of returning to practice may be. As a recovering nurse, I find myself spending a lot of time in nurse support groups, AA/NA, and IOP programs. Some nurses struggle/struggled with alcohol use disorder, marijuana abuse, opiate use disorder, etc. Some nurses in groups also have legal battles stemming from drug diversion of opiates. The lack of consistency in regards to the ability or inability to return to practice is quite baffling. By this, I mean that there is a wide array of ways nurses are punished and sometimes not punished for diversion and it DRASTICALLY affects the nurses ability to get back to practice through state sponsored diversion programs. For example, I spoke to a nurse practitioner who while a trauma RN diverted absurd amounts of opiate medications. The penalty for this nurse essentially boiled down to the attorney general allowing him to stay in practice with stipulations, no suspension, and if he complied with the state diversion program (from a licensing standpoint, not criminal diversion) then they would essentially "turn their heads" on the criminal matter. He went on to complete that requirement without any consequences other than a 3 year prescribing restriction as a NP with his DEA license. Another nurse I know used to take waste from her hospital and was charged with felony possession of a controlled substance and a type A misdemeanor for theft. This nurse was offered criminal pretrial diversion (meaning no criminal record if she complies) in her county and allowed to participate in the licensing diversion program for the state with a suspension period followed by probation until she completed her monitoring agreement. Another nurse received two felony counts and can get probation to knock down her charges to just a class A misdemeanor. In her county, there is no pretrial diversion for level 6 felonies. Given these crimes of drug diversion, how can it possibly be allowed to have such a wide range of punishments or lack of punishments for the same crime? All the nurses I know never intended to become addicted to substances when they signed up for nursing school and walked down that treacherous path. I also know all these nurses are the type to take recovery extremely seriously as the possibility of having a future rides on compliance so they jump through any hoop required to get back to their profession. I strongly feel it is not fair for the attorney general's office be selective in criminal prosecution and the county in which the diversion was committed to have life altering consequences. There must be some type of consistency in the punishment as we are talking about someone or someone and their families livelihood. Again, I'm not here to discuss addiction as a moral deficiency vs a disease, but rather how the punishment is handled. What do you think?