What is your opinion and the BON ruling in your state?

[button2cute]

Hello, everyone

My questions are pertaining to the Rx usage of narcotics as a nurse during the working hours.

1) Do you feel that you can perfrom your job while taking RX narcotics?

2) What does your BON say about a nurse working while taking RX narcotics?

3) How would you feel about a nurse taking care of you under the influence

of a RX narcotic?

4) What other alternatvies should be establish for a nurse who is taking a

prescribe medication during her working hours if she has permission to

come to work?

I will answer first.

I cannot perform my job as a nurse to give adequate patient care under the RX narcotic. I have tried and excused myself from my duties and called my doctor to give me a sick pass. I thought I could and I just could not see 70 inmates at sick call and give them an adequate treatment care. Therefore, I excused myself, obtain a sick pass went home and received a two week suspension.

The board of nursing in my state prohibits any nurse to work in patient care while taking narcotics. If you are caught, than you will be suspend as a nurse,

take programs such as saftey, therapy and chemical programs.

I would not want her to take of me because it is so easy to make mistakes without using a prescribe medication

I would prefer to see the employers to have the nurses to be place on detail duty. The duty would consist of doing the paper work that needs to be done, supplies check, any thing except patient care and able to be paid for the day.

I have a back injury and I prepare myself not to take narcotics because I want to be a nurse practitioner. My physician explained to me if I want to practice hands on than I cannot do it under the influence of narcotics. Well, I forfeit them as a daily usage and I have them as PRN. It is hard everyone because back pain is no joke. However, I want to be an effective NP and a good one. Therefore, that is my choice and how I view myself as a nurse and prescribe narcotics.

I would love to hear your responses and your state board of nursing.

Thanks,

Buttons

[HappyNurse2005, RN]

I don't know what I think about this. In one way, I want to say it all depends on the nurse, the narcotic, and why she/he is taking it, and how it affects them. Some people could take a narcotic and it wouldn't faze them. It would take care of their pain, make them able to work, etc.

Me, on the other hand, would be a worthless nurse if I took narcotics. After my third baby, those afterpains were wicked-I took one percocet. I had all these visitors in the hospital room, and I felt like I wasn't there. I was so spaced out, I hated it.

So I don't realy know what I think. I mean, my inclination would be to say no, if you're on narcotics, then no you can't take care of patients-but I would hate to have a hard and fast no exceptions rule, esp when it wouldn't necessarily have the same effect on everyone.

ahhhhhhh........glad i'm not on the bon.

[traumaRUs, MSN, APRN]

What you have to consider is that anyone who takes narcotics on a daily basis builds a tolerance to them and so loses the side effects of sleepiness and that "out of body" experience someone mentioned. I think it is an individual issue and must also be predicated on what your state BON says.

[GooeyRN, ADN, BSN, CNA, LPN, RN]

Everyone tolerates Narcs differently. It also depends on what the type and dose of the narc is. I work w/ some nurses who take narcs for chronic pain. You would never know if they didn't tell you. Now its not something I would do... I had Stadol while in labor... I insisted that there were skulls w/ long green hair on the walls...

[1Tulip]

I'm assuming you have "narcotic quality" chronic pain. It sounds like you are taking regular hydrocodone or equivalent with a 2-4 hour half life. (Maybe I'm wrong, if not... ignore what follows.)

Generally, pain-management dogma says that you are chasing your pain and not treating it, and that this practice is self-defeating and will lead to higher doses that do less and less for your pain.

If I were you, I'd explore absolutely every avenue for correction of my back problems. There are a lot of new things for backs, it's a hot area of research. I think (if it were my career) I'd be on the NIH webpage looking for clinical trials, I'd be seeing specialists, I'd be going to physical therapy... whatever I could do to ameliorate my chronic pain even if there were no silver bullet, no total fix.

And most of all, I would absolutely put myself in the hands of a pain specialist. Could they give me a block? What about steroid injections. And finally I"d find out if oxycontin was the right drug for me.

If you really have a life-time ahead of you with intractable chronic pain, you are not being wise in using short-acting narcotics. That's the simple truth.

[Balder_LPN, LPN]

everyone is rehashing an old subject here. I think the big deal with the OP (and what I cant believe isnt being addresed) is the fact that the OP was "suspended for two weeks" for going home sick / even with the note from the MD. that seems wrong wrong wrong to me.

the only ? I feel qualified to answer is that : generally, no I would not want a narcotic effected healthcare provider, nurse, MD, xray dude, whatever.