tharris22

AACN for me....

Thank you for the responses. I consider myself a good nurse and this situation made me doubt my professionalism. I guess since my intention was to take the pt to AA meetings, not go out on a date, I really did not consider it unethical at the time. I was just concerned about my license since I worked so hard for it. But I guess since it happened in nursing school there should be no consequence for me as an RN. Oh well, you live and you learn

Hello I am a new RN and new to this forum (my first post!). I have a question. My friend has me really freaked out about this so I have to get it off of my chest. Last year, when I was a nursing student I had a clinical rotation on a substance abuse unit. Since I am a recovering alcoholic myself (3 yrs sober!) I really liked the rotation because I could really relate to what they were going through. One of the pts was a young man, three years younger than me. Over a matter of weeks we became friends. I shared my sobriety story with him, thinking that it might help him. We decided to attend an AA meeting together after he was discharged. We attended meetings a few times and are still great friends (no dating went on). My school did not review ethical standards very well, because it never even crossed my mind that this was wrong. I was not a licensed nurse yet, and just felt like a student who met someone that I had a common bond with. I wanted to share my hope with this new friend, that he could be sober too. My intentions were good, although now I realize it must have been remarkably unprofessional. I told my friend this the other day and she completely freaked me out! She said that I could lose my license for being friends with this person and that I could have been kicked out of nursing school! Now that I am an actual RN, I have learned much more about crossing boundaries. I am so excited about my new career and I don't want this incident to come back and bite me in the butt. I was just trying to help, I promise! Any comments..? Please be easy on me