"Loosing" my license

Nascar nurse, ASN, RN · Jul 14, 2012

Read today on some thread here about a newer grad asking if write ups got submitted to the BON. Now if we all were in danger of "loosing" our license (I get that you mean lose, not loose) because of some bipolar, idiotic manager than the world would have a huge nursing shortage. I just don't understand where these thoughts come from.

**canoehead, BSN, RN** · Jul 14, 2012

I think schools are indoctrinating their young. For some people personal responsibility isn't enough incentive to do a good job, but fear of the almighty BON will do it.

martymoose, BSN, RN · Jul 14, 2012

probably some of these " thoughts " are from the fact that we are made to work under duress, or take unsafe assignments or lose our job.All it takes is one mistake. All it takes is a pt with lots of money and a lawyer.

Re: the doctors- well, they sometimes blow you off, and you are still responsible for the pt outcome. That's where the saying CYA comes from.I just had a recent incident of this where the doc didnt want to acknowledge the pt needing higher level of care. so now i have to document every conversation we have. luckily a new practitioner came on at shift change and agreed with me- pt ended up in ICU. Had i just ignored this, i very well could be blamed for failure to rescue. thats why people are afraid of losing their license. Some are more" paranoid " than others .

xoemmylouox, ASN, RN · Jul 14, 2012

probably some of these " thoughts " are from the fact that we are made to work under duress, or take unsafe assignments or lose our job.All it takes is one mistake. All it takes is a pt with lots of money and a lawyer.
Re: the doctors- well, they sometimes blow you off, and you are still responsible for the pt outcome. That's where the saying CYA comes from.I just had a recent incident of this where the doc didnt want to acknowledge the pt needing higher level of care. so now i have to document every conversation we have. luckily a new practitioner came on at shift change and agreed with me- pt ended up in ICU. Had i just ignored this, i very well could be blamed for failure to rescue. thats why people are afraid of losing their license. Some are more" paranoid " than others .

I have to agree. I think most people have a very rational fear of being sued, fired, or losing their license. Some people just let the fear take over and the get into a full blown panic. I think some don't worry enough. There are always extremes on both sides. I have to say I think it is best to have some fear. It keeps you on your toes.

OKNurse2be · Jul 14, 2012

I may be naive, seeing as how I am just beginning my nursing journey, but I kind of see RN license (or LPN license for that matter) kind of like a driving license. One follows the rules of the road, don't use excessive speed, don't drink and drive and the list goes on and on then one is considered a good driver and nobody gets hurt. Also one does not get a ticket. Nursing is kind of the same way. Just as a car can be a deadly weapon if one does not drive right, as a nurse one can end up costing someone their life if one is not careful. I think a certain measure of fear is good. However, to live in perpetual fear all the time is also very stressful and can actually make one prone to making more mistakes. To some extent, I think it's possible to become complacent as well. One gets so used to doing things that one becomes careless, and overlook some things that are significant. Unfortunately for far too many nurses their working conditions are not very conducive to staying safe 100% of the time. I think that is sad. Not only for the nurses that try their very best in spite of everything, but also for their patients who fall through the cracks.

nurseprnRN, BSN, RN · Jul 14, 2012

"probably some of these " thoughts " are from the fact that we are made to work under duress, or take unsafe assignments or lose our job.all it takes is one mistake.

umm, no. it may take only one truly spectacular mistake, like coming in to work stoned out of your mind, or cleaning out all the morphine from the pyxis before you go for your break, but as i've said before, routine errors such as everyone makes at some time in a career should not be the source of such angst and paranoia. this is crazy-making.

all it takes is a pt with lots of money and a lawyer. "

no, as a matter of fact, it doesn't, and the next time somebody tells you that (faculty included-- it's a very pervasive myth), ask them for a citation of an actual case. legal nurses will tell you (or you can look it up yourself) that only a tiny proportion of alleged malpractice cases ever come to trial, and of those, only about 4% are found for the plaintiff.

as rubyvee points out, this topic comes up all the time. the last one was only, gee, four months ago. we must be getting slack.

if i've said it once, i've said it a dozen times. there is entirely too much moaning about "loosing (sic)/losing my license" on an. i don't know if it's related to the general catastrophizing outlook on life that comes from the daily news and how it's reported ("if it bleeds, it leads"), or a general innumeracy related to actual statistics and risk assessment. probably a bit of both.

you can go online and find out who suffered loss or restriction of rn license in your state. my state nursing association publishes them in the newsletter; it's maybe dozens per year, but certainly not hundreds or thousands. people lose their licenses for things like substance abuse at work, narcotics diversion, fraud, felony theft, patient abuse, and so forth. if you aren't planning on doing any of that, your risk of license restriction or loss is minuscule.

******* off the staffing coordinator, forgetting to chart something and doing an addendum later under established conventions, habitual lateness, getting the stink-eye from your supervisor-- these might cause you to lose a job or a promotion, but they do not rise to the level of losing a license. try to remember that.

https://allnurses.com/general-nursing-discussion/fear-losing-license-701852.html

i just had a recent incident of this where the doc didnt want to acknowledge the pt needing higher level of care. so now i have to document every conversation we have. luckily a new practitioner came on at shift change and agreed with me- pt ended up in icu. had i just ignored this, i very well could be blamed for failure to rescue. thats why people are afraid of losing their license.

they are wrong. you would not get blamed for failure to rescue if you charted properly (yes, as a professional you do need to document communication with others-- i trust you do not see this as burdensome or inappropriate), went up your chain of command and documented that, and did what your license empowers and obligates you to do.

netglow, ASN, RN · Jul 14, 2012

Here is a scenario where such fears are legitimate.

https://allnurses.com/general-nursing-discussion/new-nurse-6-a-757475.html

whichone'spink, BSN, RN · Jul 14, 2012

I've read posts from nurses on this board about people (notably family members angry they didn't get their way, angry patients who didn't get their way, and even stalkers) who made anonymous complaints to the Board of Nursing. In one case, the nurse had her license taken away after her stalker made a complaint to the Board of Nursing because it was seen as a nurse having a relationship with a patient. A lot of things on the internet have to be taken with a grain of salt, but those actions by those crazy people against nurses can give one pause. Taking away a nurse's livelihood is worse than throwing a bedpan full of urine and feces at a nurse.

I don't blame nurses for being paranoid all the time about losing their license. There's too many wicked people out there. It seems like it's not enough to just be safe in your practice.

Asystole RN · Jul 14, 2012

if someone feels that their situation is so unsafe that it is cause to worry about action against them then i do not begrudge them from removing themselves from that situation. granted, licensure revocation is an extreme and rare disciplinary action, usually reserved for the unrepentant or unwilling to learn from prior mistakes, it is still a cause of concern.

just a simple investigation by the bon is cause for concern. being investigated will usually prohibit a prospectiv eemployee from successfully obtaining further employment until the investigation is complete.

a dear friend of mine was accused by a former coworker of abuse and subsequently investigated by the bon. her employer terminated her over the situation and she was unable to locate further employment for the next 8 months while the investigation was ongoing. unfortunately, it took 8 months for the bon to assign an investigator who after reading the accounts simply dropped the false and simply silly charges against her.

i personally do not have enough money saved to endure 8 months of unemployment.

dirtyhippiegirl, BSN, RN · Jul 14, 2012

Eeh. Some part ignorance*;

some part where "losing my license" actually translates into a catchall phrase for "I don't feel comfortable or safe taking care of my assigned patient load" (to be expected considering the increasing patient ratios, acuity, and lack of real-world training that nursing students receive these days). Not necessarily as a shunning of personal responsibility per canoehead -- most of the time you read these words coupled with misgivings about safely being able to care for patients.

re. catastrophizing: I don't know about you guys but where I work, there are a handful of "...and she lost her nursing license when..." stories that have taken on a total urban myth quality to them. This stuff gets retold and recycled so many times that, hey, did you hear about that nurse in SICU who lost her license by...which drives the fear more home. I think.

*if anyone else is as obsessed with perusing BON licensure meetings as I am, the CA BoN has an excellent website that is perfectly set up for being able to pull up cases based on keywords. Some of what you read is just amazing.

tothepointeLVN, LVN · Jul 14, 2012

I'd glad someone finally brought this up. I'm just so tired of hearing 'I didn't work this hard to risk losing my licence" when they really should be more concerned with losing their apartment because that statement is almost always followed by quitting their job. Really it seem to be a lack of tolerance for discomfort most of the time.

The only person I indirectly know who lost their license lost it for running unlicensed care homes and hiring unlicensed caregivers and then evicting patients who didn't pay on time by calling 911. Most of the things people seem to use as justification for "possibly" losing their license is nowhere near that extreme.