Response to question

[FeleciaSmith]

It's nurses helping nurses. A RN here about three years ago killed himself over discipline because he didn't know it wasn't the end of the world. When you bring up discipline nurses cringe or sneer at another nurse who may have had problems. I would like to see the stigma taken out of discipline in the nurses community and the boards all agree to what is able to be disciplined. Real things not "potential for harm" we don't live in the future. I live in Texas one of the most punitive states where our discipline is outta this world, every little thing, poor investigations and high penalty. The board also has the right to overturn judicial decisions made by higher courts. I would like to be able to help employers gain workers, nurses accept discipline gladly. Hold the hospitals more accountable for their systems and each individual nurse understanding what she need to keep herself, her staff and client safe.Like drivers license if you get a speeding ticket you don't kill yaself or even embarrassed. You get nursing discipline there is a shame factor to it. No one ever got in trouble without help, be it the flawed systems, jchco or mean vindictive coworkers. I know a nurse who sued a facility won 30k and they reported her license after they paid her sent the board 400 pages of chart, the investigator(a former police officer) was insisting punishment and refused to acknowledge the lawsuit or even call it retaliation. Now she cannot really find a job because no one wants to deal with the board.

So in a nutshell that's it.

[jadelpn, LPN, EMT-B]

There are very few nurses who set out to do patient harm.

That being said, the environment of care is such that often mistakes are made due to the sheer numbers of patients that a nurse needs to care for in any given shift.

Until there is laws put into place regarding nurse/patient ratios, acuity factors and other safety measures, this stuff will continue.

At the expense of the nurse. The facility doesn't want to say they are wrong--it is the nurse's problem. Because nurses are replaceable. There are 3 other nurses who can't find jobs that will take one, no matter what the atmosphere--do my one year and out, on to better things--(which interestingly is not much better).

They can say that "incidents" are not punitive--but they mostly are. And can be used against a nurse. But it all fall under the heading of employed at will--they can just let you go for no reason at all. But what fun is that? Lets work up a bunch of poop, make sure that this nurse can't work again, and move on....cause we can't have the nurse badmouthing the system and get that patient satisfaction down, now can we?

Nurses should be disciplined for gross misconduct. Otherwise, why are we calling it discipline? If more managers were actively involved on their floors--and could guide and mentor BEFORE mistakes are made, wouldn't it be so much better? With that being said, we all make mistakes. We are human. So unless there's facilities hiring programmable robots any time soon, mistakes will be made. So to attempt to make nurses into robots who don't ever make an error is unrealistic. And any manager who has been a bedside nurse in the past decade or so would know this. Those are few and far between...

[FeleciaSmith]

At the expense of the nurse... One person who can't topple a kingdom. Do you work hard for what you have to lose it to conjecture?

thats when the disagreements would start then.. I'm not talking about systems I'm talking about a man who blew his brains out because he felt his life was ruined because we have people who have never worked a floor and are making rules. It's so easy now to skip the floor on nursing and appear at the top just because you have the credentials mean you deserve them. You are talking about a zillion dollar monster I'm talking about each and every nurse who coulda got reported but because they like her or something she doesn't or the nurse they don't like and she does. This is about getting people to respect discipline not be afraid of it. Patient ratios? Yeah tell them to stop

coming, tell pharm companies to stop handing out mess they call medication and ruining my tv show with commercials tell 86 year olds to stop wanting new hips.

im just concerned about what happens to Nancy Nurse not BigWig medical center and together it can be done. Not for credit or prestigious kudos just so I can age knowing that my my future nurse is not running scared from Nurse police

[LockportRN]

I hear your frustration I did have a chuckle with the 'nurse police'. That one I will remember.

[CryssyD]

I don't like the "nurse police" either--too much power, not enough actual evidence; I've seen it happen--small mistakes that were appropriately handled get blown up into career-destroying disciplinary-action-worthy events because someone couldn't handle the situation professionally: the hospital needed a scapegoat to placate an angry family, the nursing supervisor didn't like the nurse who made the mistake, or the Board was more concerned about its own (unlikely)potential liability than about the individual nurse's career. Serious mistakes that show real signs of negligence or incompetence should be investigated; but nurses shouldn't have to live in fear of making an honest mistake. We are only human--we are going to make mistakes. I admit there are mistakes that should not be allowed to happen--this is where normal prudence and policy/procedure should come in; but the measure of a nurse is not whether s/he makes mistakes, but how s/he handles and learns from them.