A RN license in Texas may be subjected to a disciplinary proceeding before the Texas Board of Nursing. Whenever a RN finds herself in such a situation, she will need to find the best nurse attorney in the country. This is important, as it is her only chance to protect her RN license. Otherwise, the BON may find her guilty in the administrative case and order for the revocation of her RN license.
On or about January 31, 2016, while employed as a Staff Nurse in the Emergency Department of a certain hospital in Cypress, the RN inappropriately discharged a patient without having the physician re-evaluate the patient’s abnormal elevated temperature of 102.9F. Instead, she placed the information on the communication board where the physician did not see it until two hours after a patient was discharged. Subsequently, the patient was called back and admitted to the facility. Her conduct was likely to injure the patient from untreated disease processes.
On March 10, 2016, through March 12, 2017, while employed in the same facility in Cypress, the RN failed to timely administer medications and, instead, inappropriately and repeatedly left oral and injectable medications, including insulin, inside the room of a patient. She later returned to administer them.
The RN’s conduct may have harmed the patient because of non-efficacious results in regulating the patient’s diabetic condition, therefore causing the patient’s blood sugar level to fluctuate, becoming too high or too low, and placed others at risk by leaving a high risk medication unsupervised.
As a response to the complaint filed against her, the RN states the patient was discharged from ER after she confirmed discharge orders had been noted on Communication Board (where MD to RN, RN to RN, and RN to tech communication takes place). When she noted the elevated temperature, the RN states she placed the information on the communication board for the physician to review. When there had been no response from the physician after a period of time, she went ahead and discharged the patient.
However, the RN states she realizes that she should not just rely on the computer communication board. Finally, she admits leaving medication for the patient unattended on top of a closet where the TV was located and acknowledges that medication should never be left in patient room unattended.
Unfortunately, she failed to properly defend her case to the Texas Board of Nursing (BON). Because of this, she was eventually disciplined and her RN license was suspended.
The abovementioned case is just one of the many examples why every nurse who experiences having complaints filed against them should seek help from a trusted nurse attorney.
If you receive a complaint against you, make sure to seek help from nurse attorney Yong J. An. If you have any questions about your disciplinary process by calling or texting him at (832) 428-5679 day, night or weekends.