RNJD65

Wanted to also add (and you probably already thought of this) but don't be afraid to ask for help, especially from family of your child's friends. One of my kid's friends went through a loss a few years ago and the mom asked me if the kid could hang at our house with our sitter (my kids are younger) after school a few days a week while she finished restaurant shifts. It was no big thing to me and meant the world to the child and his mom. Just wanted to remind you to ASK for help and don't feel guilty; more people than you know probably want to help but don't know how.

Not to get too in the weeds, but I just wanted to make sure you know to apply for Social Security Survivor benefits. My brother and I lost my father in what sounds like might be similar circumstances and those benefits kept the lights on while my mom figured out next steps. I know it is so, so hard right now. Just take it one day at a time and know you WILL get through this and your child will too. It's such a horrible experience, but kids are resilient and will surprise you. You are both going to come out ok on the other end. Sending best wishes your way.

I'd suggest contacting your former employer. Although they are not required to, they will almost certainly have the organization's lawyer attend the deposition with you if you'd like. Unless you have your own insurance that would pay for a lawyer, I wouldn't spend your own money to hire an attorney in this situation -- getting up to speed on the facts, prepping you for the depo and attending with you would probably be 3-5k. From a practical perspective, if you weren't named personally in the suit, you generally don't need to worry about personal liability.

I'm an in-house lawyer for a hospital system (and an RN) and handle BON complaints frequently where we get subpoenas from the BON about a specific nurse based on a patient complaint. We've handled them from disgruntled spouses/boyfriends and a few from patients whose complaints were not warranted. In every one of those cases, the BON reviewed the records then closed the case with no action. I wouldn't worry about the BON -- while they are there to protect the public, (at least in my state), they approach this issues knowing that a number of the complaints are not warranted. So sorry you are dealing with this!

kristie778 - I received your PM but can't respond because I haven't been active enough on Allnurses. If you PM me your e-mail address I'll e-mail you a response.

When I was going through, anything at 160 or above would get your into a top 50 school. I understand there are less folks applying now, so I would bet a 158 or so might do the trick. Good luck to your daughter; the LSAT is super stressful! I will say if she ends up feeling awful on Saturday, she might want to reschedule. They don't take your highest score, they average them if you take the test multiple times so you want to get as high as you can the first time you take it.

Most in-house counsel jobs at hospitals do require firm experience first. Whether or not that needs to be at a "big" firm depends on the hospital system, but you would certainly need to have experience doing health care law which usually requires being at a firm of at least 25 people or so. The good thing about being at a firm first is that is gives you an opportunity to network like crazy with other folks in health law, which is how you can eventually land an in-house gig. I went in-house with a hospital system that I did a lot of work for while I was in private practice. I will say my mentor is also an RN/JD and she stayed in private practice at a huge 1000+ attorney firm. She's an excellent lawyer and makes a lot of money. Like me, she was lucky to get in to a good school, do very well there then land a good job afterwards which is how she got where she is. Best of luck deciding; health care law is lots of fun and in demand if you are able to break in to it.

I am an RN/JD and it has worked out great for me, but I got very, very lucky. I would only recommend law school if you are a very good student, you get a high LSAT score, you can afford to go to school full-time and you can get in to a top 50 law school. I went to a top 50 school, graduated in the top 10% of my class and landed a big firm job doing health care law (regulatory and corporate stuff, not med-mal) back in 2003. All that was possible because I had the opportunity to do summer internships and get other experience that only a full-time student experience really allows you. I also found I tested well in law school (you just take 1 big exam at the end of each class, so it is a lot of pressure), but some of that was just luck -- many of my classmates, who are very smart and worked hard, did not test well and did not have good job prospects. I started out making almost 3x my salary as a nurse, but I worked a TON of hours and had to prove myself for 7 or 8 years. I then jumped to an in-house counsel position at a hospital system and got promoted to a VP position from there. I now make a very nice living, work reasonable hours and have an in-demand skill set, but if I had it to do over again, I would not do it because I know I got very lucky and might not have that same luck if I had to do it again. I also was able to get significant scholarship money for law school because of a strong GPA and LSAT score, so I had less than 50k in debt after law school which I was able to easily pay off in a few years.