Fellow nurses, I am glad I can post anonymous here, I need some feedback. I am a Nurse of many years, mostly hospital. I received 2 separate reprimands on my license. One for making a med error and giving a post-op patient pain med the pt had listed as a allergy (yep, I applied her allergy band myself and I take full responsibility). I was fired. Several years later, I was working in long term care and a patient was out of her non-narcotic pain med on a Saturday night at 8pm. I used somebody else's no-longer used med card to make sure she wouldn't go without. Administrator fired and reported me to the BON and I received another reprimand as it is considered financial and elder abuse.
Now I am looking for a job and was thinking about doing some travelling. I painfully have come to the realization that travel nursing travel agencies will not hire me. I am afraid to even apply to local facilities as all it will take is a quick nurse check with the BON and see the reprimand. I am a caring, experienced compassioned nurse who has made mistakes. I am sitting at home, not knowing what to do and scared to death about more rejections while I getting swallowed by a looming financial disaster by not working. Do I approach a hiring manager first before even applying and explain things? How do I get out from under this?