Yep, it happened to me. Another nurse forged my signature on a narcotic sheet! I'm pretty certain I know who it was and am not real pleased with the nurse at the moment (obviously!). It wasn't just my name either.
I feel betrayed, hurt, angry, taken advantage of, etc.
I don't think I'll be able to talk to this nurse in a civilized manner anymore.
The one good thing is we saw this at the beginning of our shift and brought it to the DON's attention immediately.
I'm glad to hear some BONs aren't so quick to offer the peer programs. My state is still big on 'protecting' and hiding what these nurses have done. Once they make it through the program they can practice again and no one ever knows because there is no "black mark", not a single mention of adverse disciplinary action on their license and no criminal record.
9 yrs ago I had the misfortune of working with a charismatic nurse I'll call Joe. His behavior was nothing less than criminal and cruel. Many of his pts never got their pain meds and his focus on feeding his habit caused him to make lots of mistakes in his nursing practice. Joe was allowed in the peer program my BON has. Then he was caught using during his program but was allowed to restart. When he finished his license was free and clear, not even a mention of his multiple mistakes due to sloppy nursing practice, not even a misdemeanor on his criminal record. He got a job in the ER of a different hospital in a nearby town I had moved to. A yr later he was caught diverting again.
My issue with this is the unfairness present when non diverters, nurses who don't steal and aren't addicted get reported to the BON for mistakes or complaints against their licenses...They often get a permanent record of disciplinary action with state BON and National Data Bank. No alternate to disciplinary action is offered to these nurses simply because they didn't steal drugs. But the nursing practice mistakes/errors they were reported for are often similar to the errors Joe made when his addiction started to affect his nursing judgement.
So it's like the BON's are rewarding nurses who make become sloppy or make errors in their practice as long as they're also addicts.... The other sober nurses who happen to make mistakes get no such protection. So when dealing with the BON it really pays to be an addict.
I know many will think I'm being unsympathetic to nurse addicts...But this is my personal opinion and it comes from an awful, harrowing and lengthy experience my friends husband had with my state's BON. He was an RN with a perfect employment/career record and no pt complaints after 18 yrs of working ifull time in 3 different ER's. Then he was reported to the BON by an newbie nurse for "being too rough" with a pt.
This is second hand info because I wasn't there during all of the confusion that night but by many reports this pt was on PCP, dangerously violent, and hitting any staff that came near him. GF's hubby said he stepped in and put himself in harm's way only to hold the man down for a few minutes in an effort to keep his coworkers safe. Since GF's hubby has no history of complains or any type of physical abuse/problems with anger management I'm inclined to believe him. Plus he's not exactly a tough body builder type at 5'8 and 140 lbs. He felt like he was doing what needed to be done for everyone's protection, even the pt.
In any event, GF's hubby thought that since the newbie nurse who reported him to the BON had never seen a situation with a violent PCP pt in the ER, maybe she misread the situation. He thinks that when stepped in and put himself in harms way to hold the pt down for the safety of the staff, she interpreted it as roughness and possibly felt it was her duty to report initiate a BON complaint.
Long story short, he wasn't offered a peer program, or a way to come out of it with a license that is 'totally free and clear' the way so many nurses who steal narcotics from pts and make mistakes/errors at work during their active addiction are. According to GF(who is also an RN) they had to spend 15k in legal fees to keep his license but he now has a record of disciplinary action with the BON and National Data Bank that will follow him everywhere he goes, forever.
From GF's hubby's experience it just seems like an unfair difference in the way BON's opperate. One nurse gets a permant national record while the addict goes though a proogram and gets out with a spotless record (with both the BON and criminal justice system). Future employers will never know of mistakes the made.
I hate to tell you but yes ma'am, you can and you will lose your license over a single diversion. If you are caught on that single diversion and turned into the BON, you certainly could lose your license. the BON is revoking more and more licenses in leu of offering the peer program.
I'm about to hit my 5 yr sober birthday. I'm also highly active with our recovering nurses.
I agree that the nurse should be fired. she has NO business practicing. she's a danger to her patients not to mention herself. being an addict isnt an excuse. it may be the reason but it is never an excuse.
I hope she gets treatment. and i agree...if there is one diversion that was found...there are tons of ones nobody ever knew about.
you are not going to lose your license for a missing narcotic.
But I'm sure it wouldn't be pretty when you are reported to the BON for an unaccounted narc. So I'm pretty sure there is a possibility one's license could be placed on restrictions or revoked. At any rate, I like others lost compassion for the nurse as soon as I read the title of this thread. I would be raging mad if it was my signature that was forged.
are you serious? if you read the OP, it was not just one narc. it was a sheet of 30.
her signature was forged by someone who was taking narcotics and if someone had accused kermitlady of stealing them, she may have lost her job, her integrity with her coworkers, faced criminal charges and possibly been reported to the BON and be required to complete nurse rehab before practicing again, nevermind have difficulty finding a job and having to prove herself because she now has an infraction on her license and drug charges.... because someone else forged her signature.
what the forger did was wrong. i'm all about rehab. but that's where this nurse needs to be. not near patients.
There was a person who posted here about an incident where someone looked over her shoulder and saw her put her password into a Pixis. Her password was then used to divert narcotics. It caused a huge amount of grief for the person who wronged. The only thing I believe that saved her was that everyone knew she was not in the hospital or anywhere near it at the time the narcotics were diverted. You could hear the anquish in the persons post. It is hard to have sympathy for anyone who could do that to another nurse.
you are not going to lose your license for a missing narcotic.
Depends on the facility and the BON. Also, if you are on probation (one year at our facility), you can and will be fired. I've seen it twice in the last 4 years.
There was a person who posted here about an incident where someone looked over her shoulder and saw her put her password into a Pixis. Her password was then used to divert narcotics. It caused a huge amount of grief for the person who wronged. The only thing I believe that saved her was that everyone knew she was not in the hospital or anywhere near it at the time the narcotics were diverted. You could hear the anquish in the persons post. It is hard to have sympathy for anyone who could do that to another nurse.
Not sure if it was my post you're thinking of, but pretty much exactly that happened to me. I was in the hospital at the time "I" took the morphine. It was just luck that I happened to be returning a med and saw that "I" had taken a LOT of morphine out on that patient earlier in the shift. Another nurse that it happened too a week or so before it happend to me, she wasn't there at the time "she" took morphine out. It was all soooo scary. Peeing in the cup. Worrying that the lortab I took occasionally for back pain would show up and they'd think it was the stolen morphine. Worrying that all the time and student loans I'd put into becoming a nurse would be for nothing. Worrying I'd go to jail if I couldn't prove my innocence. Not to mention, the suspicion that we all had for each other until the person got caught, because you couldn't trust anybody. I felt bad for the person that had the drug habit, but I felt worse for me and the other nurses that she used to steal the drugs.
After the first incident, they did drug test all the nurses. However, the urine tests all came back negative and they had no definitive proof who had diverted the narcotics, only speculations.
This time, though, it's rather obvious who took the drugs and when. I do know that the administrator at my facility did want to prosecute the first time it happened.
I'm glad to hear some BONs aren't so quick to offer the peer programs. My state is still big on 'protecting' and hiding what these nurses have done. Once they make it through the program they can practice again and no one ever knows because there is no "black mark", not a single mention of adverse disciplinary action on their license and no criminal record.
9 yrs ago I had the misfortune of working with a charismatic nurse I'll call Joe. His behavior was nothing less than criminal and cruel. Many of his pts never got their pain meds and his focus on feeding his habit caused him to make lots of mistakes in his nursing practice. Joe was allowed in the peer program my BON has. Then he was caught using during his program but was allowed to restart. When he finished his license was free and clear, not even a mention of his multiple mistakes due to sloppy nursing practice, not even a misdemeanor on his criminal record. He got a job in the ER of a different hospital in a nearby town I had moved to. A yr later he was caught diverting again.
My issue with this is the unfairness present when non diverters, nurses who don't steal and aren't addicted get reported to the BON for mistakes or complaints against their licenses...They often get a permanent record of disciplinary action with state BON and National Data Bank. No alternate to disciplinary action is offered to these nurses simply because they didn't steal drugs. But the nursing practice mistakes/errors they were reported for are often similar to the errors Joe made when his addiction started to affect his nursing judgement.
So it's like the BON's are rewarding nurses who make become sloppy or make errors in their practice as long as they're also addicts.... The other sober nurses who happen to make mistakes get no such protection. So when dealing with the BON it really pays to be an addict.
I know many will think I'm being unsympathetic to nurse addicts...But this is my personal opinion and it comes from an awful, harrowing and lengthy experience my friends husband had with my state's BON. He was an RN with a perfect employment/career record and no pt complaints after 18 yrs of working ifull time in 3 different ER's. Then he was reported to the BON by an newbie nurse for "being too rough" with a pt.
This is second hand info because I wasn't there during all of the confusion that night but by many reports this pt was on PCP, dangerously violent, and hitting any staff that came near him. GF's hubby said he stepped in and put himself in harm's way only to hold the man down for a few minutes in an effort to keep his coworkers safe. Since GF's hubby has no history of complains or any type of physical abuse/problems with anger management I'm inclined to believe him. Plus he's not exactly a tough body builder type at 5'8 and 140 lbs. He felt like he was doing what needed to be done for everyone's protection, even the pt.
In any event, GF's hubby thought that since the newbie nurse who reported him to the BON had never seen a situation with a violent PCP pt in the ER, maybe she misread the situation. He thinks that when stepped in and put himself in harms way to hold the pt down for the safety of the staff, she interpreted it as roughness and possibly felt it was her duty to report initiate a BON complaint.
Long story short, he wasn't offered a peer program, or a way to come out of it with a license that is 'totally free and clear' the way so many nurses who steal narcotics from pts and make mistakes/errors at work during their active addiction are. According to GF(who is also an RN) they had to spend 15k in legal fees to keep his license but he now has a record of disciplinary action with the BON and National Data Bank that will follow him everywhere he goes, forever.
From GF's hubby's experience it just seems like an unfair difference in the way BON's opperate. One nurse gets a permant national record while the addict goes though a proogram and gets out with a spotless record (with both the BON and criminal justice system). Future employers will never know of mistakes the made.
I understand your frustration. I also understand some opinions that drug addicts shouldn't be given a second chance. i am very grateful though for my second chance and have worked my butt off daily for the past 5 yrs to prove to the board that i was worth that chance. i will say in my case that they didnt let me keep my license with just a slap on the wrist. i had to personally check in with 2 members of the board to let them know how i was doing and my employer, the treatment center and my EAP all also kept them informed of my progress. the board argued with each other, in front of me, whether i should be allowed to even go to the peer program and do treatment. when i went to the board, i was just honest. i'd been an addict since i was 14, im now 41. having told them i was an addict basically my whole life some of them didnt feel i should get that second chance. but they gave it to me and im so grateful! i still keep them informed of my progress even when i dont have to. but it will always be on my record that my license was on probation for drug addiction and stealing narcs. i really hate the word diversion. it seems like some nice little word someone came up with to make it sound better. i stole. so i prefer to call it stealing.
the way nurses get away without having anything on their record is to report themselves to the peer program. if you self report to peer (in my state anyway) and successfully complete your contract then the board never even knows you went thru the program.
i have known some nurses that wouldnt have self reported if it hadnt been that way so i guess you could argue for or against that.
but i have noticed that the board is revoking more and more licenses in the past 2 years for stealing drugs instead of using peer.
Well, I *think* they fired the nurse that I think forged my signature. Can't be 100% certain though. We work every other weekend at my facility and one of the other nurses told me she wasn't there for either shift this past weekend. (It was my weekend off). I was off today for a TB recert class, so I guess I'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out what action they took against this nurse.
This really scares me. I work at a state facility that doesn't have a single Pyxis, they are in the dark ages. All the narcs are on these 30 count cards and we just sign our name for them. And since I'm per diem, I work at many different units. Someone could easily forge my signature and it could be weeks/months before I noticed. I really hate their antiquated system.
I just came home today after finding out my co-worker, a fellow nurse got terminated. She forged my signature on a narcotic sheet, for the disposal of 19 Narcs. I only found this sheet by accident because my boss was off and I was charge nurse 4 days ago. I promptly reported this finding to my D.O.N. and have been a nervous wreck all week. She was terminated today and many of the staff members, mostly aides are furious with me. She was loved by the aides and patients. Sometimes its tough to do the right thing.
I just came home today after finding out my co-worker, a fellow nurse got terminated. She forged my signature on a narcotic sheet, for the disposal of 19 Narcs. I only found this sheet by accident because my boss was off and I was charge nurse 4 days ago. I promptly reported this finding to my D.O.N. and have been a nervous wreck all week. She was terminated today and many of the staff members, mostly aides are furious with me. She was loved by the aides and patients. Sometimes its tough to do the right thing.
Hang in there. Doing the right thing is not always easy or recognized by others. The aides aren't seeing the whole picture here. And the professional thing to do is to not discuss the situation with them. sigh. Leaves you in a mess, doesn't it. I hope your manager can settle things with the aides/ staff members.
CaOTn96
43 Posts
I'm glad to hear some BONs aren't so quick to offer the peer programs. My state is still big on 'protecting' and hiding what these nurses have done. Once they make it through the program they can practice again and no one ever knows because there is no "black mark", not a single mention of adverse disciplinary action on their license and no criminal record.
9 yrs ago I had the misfortune of working with a charismatic nurse I'll call Joe. His behavior was nothing less than criminal and cruel. Many of his pts never got their pain meds and his focus on feeding his habit caused him to make lots of mistakes in his nursing practice. Joe was allowed in the peer program my BON has. Then he was caught using during his program but was allowed to restart. When he finished his license was free and clear, not even a mention of his multiple mistakes due to sloppy nursing practice, not even a misdemeanor on his criminal record. He got a job in the ER of a different hospital in a nearby town I had moved to. A yr later he was caught diverting again.
My issue with this is the unfairness present when non diverters, nurses who don't steal and aren't addicted get reported to the BON for mistakes or complaints against their licenses...They often get a permanent record of disciplinary action with state BON and National Data Bank. No alternate to disciplinary action is offered to these nurses simply because they didn't steal drugs. But the nursing practice mistakes/errors they were reported for are often similar to the errors Joe made when his addiction started to affect his nursing judgement.
So it's like the BON's are rewarding nurses who make become sloppy or make errors in their practice as long as they're also addicts.... The other sober nurses who happen to make mistakes get no such protection. So when dealing with the BON it really pays to be an addict.
I know many will think I'm being unsympathetic to nurse addicts...But this is my personal opinion and it comes from an awful, harrowing and lengthy experience my friends husband had with my state's BON. He was an RN with a perfect employment/career record and no pt complaints after 18 yrs of working ifull time in 3 different ER's. Then he was reported to the BON by an newbie nurse for "being too rough" with a pt.
This is second hand info because I wasn't there during all of the confusion that night but by many reports this pt was on PCP, dangerously violent, and hitting any staff that came near him. GF's hubby said he stepped in and put himself in harm's way only to hold the man down for a few minutes in an effort to keep his coworkers safe. Since GF's hubby has no history of complains or any type of physical abuse/problems with anger management I'm inclined to believe him. Plus he's not exactly a tough body builder type at 5'8 and 140 lbs. He felt like he was doing what needed to be done for everyone's protection, even the pt.
In any event, GF's hubby thought that since the newbie nurse who reported him to the BON had never seen a situation with a violent PCP pt in the ER, maybe she misread the situation. He thinks that when stepped in and put himself in harms way to hold the pt down for the safety of the staff, she interpreted it as roughness and possibly felt it was her duty to report initiate a BON complaint.
Long story short, he wasn't offered a peer program, or a way to come out of it with a license that is 'totally free and clear' the way so many nurses who steal narcotics from pts and make mistakes/errors at work during their active addiction are. According to GF(who is also an RN) they had to spend 15k in legal fees to keep his license but he now has a record of disciplinary action with the BON and National Data Bank that will follow him everywhere he goes, forever.
From GF's hubby's experience it just seems like an unfair difference in the way BON's opperate. One nurse gets a permant national record while the addict goes though a proogram and gets out with a spotless record (with both the BON and criminal justice system). Future employers will never know of mistakes the made.