What should I ask the Board of Nursing?

I would say exactly what you said in your post, "What does the BON actually do to help nurses in the field." Would be interesting to see what the response is.

You can ask that question, but the point of the BON of any state isn't really to "help" nurses -- it's to regulate nursing practice to benefit/protect the public. Your state nursing association exists to help nurses.

Personally I think that anyone who works in the correctional community is subjecting themselves to what might happen. A relative worked as a guard and was left for dead. The person ran away (after recuperating, but only because they were found in time) and went back to work in the same type of work, only to be assaulted again. Their health is zilch and they can't work at all. Yet, this person was always aware of the possibilities. I would not choose to work in that area. I've had problems enough in the regular "sector". I don't think you will find any viable answers to your questions. Government entities exist in their own world and there is no concern there for the rest of us.

I guess I just don't see the reason to confront the BON. If it doesn't involve YOU, the less you have to do with the BON, the better.

And...as a student, I sure as heck wouldn't put my name in their memory.

Well I am a student, returning to school after some time in the workforce. Let me clarify. Not all my information is second-hand. The BoN was in our facility to do an audit and were so incredibly rude, our director filed a formal complaint and the warden almost had them escorted off of property. I say "bias" based on the incident involving a male and female nurse who were guilty of smuggling in contraband, and both were fired because of it. In addition, the female nurse was also guilty of sexual contact while in the performance of her duties. The male nurse was fined $2,400 dollars and had his license suspended for two years. The female nurse got off with a $500 fine and a reprimand. Aside from the sexual contact, both incidents were the same, based on the case files we read. Our facility physician said he worked with a NP who was reported to the BoN by an inmate. She was terrorized for months by the BoN and eventually left the state because of what they did to her. The BoN believed she was guilty of sexual contact based not on any factual evidence, or even allegations but on the inmates claims that the NP was smuggling explosives into the prison...in her lady parts. Again the case files were read in this case.

Debating the BoN would be foolish, but really? Are such actions prudent for "respected" members of the community?

Althought the bulk of my career has been clinical practice (I am not a "career" regulator by any means), I did spend four years as a hospital surveyor/inspector for my state and the Feds, which is v. similar to the BON role (we regulated hospitals rather than invidual clinicians). We investigated complaints and problems in hospitals all over the state, and our findings and final reports were public record. I can tell you that, because of concerns about individuals' privacy, we were very careful and circumspect about what we put in our final reports which were available to the involved parties and the public -- we put in enough info/evidence to support our findings and the citation/penalty we were levying, but we typically left out embarassing or damaging personal information that would not really add anything to the final report or outcome. You said "the case files were read" -- do you mean the final report issued by the BON, or the individual, personal notes taken by the investigator(s) in the course of the investigation? In my experience, there's sometimes a big difference (and, in my experience, in my previous agency, no one outside of the agency would have access to the original "case file" (as opposed to the final report) without a court-issued subpoena).

In my experience, unless you conducted the investigation along with the investigator, reviewed all the documentation, sat in on all the witness interviews, etc., you don't really know what happened in a particular situation with colleagues, however much you may think you know ...

Also, there are lots of people in any state who have tales of woe to tell about how awfully they were mistreated by the BON (I don't mean in terms of BON members being rude, I mean in terms of actual outcomes -- losing licenses, etc.) -- we get plenty of posts about that on this site -- and it usually turns out that there's quite a bit more to the story than the person initially lets on. While BONs exist to protect the public, not nurses, they are usually pretty fair in their dealings with nurses -- if only because of the possibility of being sued if they're not! :)