When you are facing the uncertainty of a disciplinary hearing, not knowing what the outcome will be or how it may affect your nursing license, you may feel as though you need to provide as much evidence to the hearing panel as possible in your favor. This may include letters or emails of recommendation or support from employers or colleagues that highlight your positive qualities: your work ethic, your competence, your positive interactions with patients, and the kinds of things that might sway the hearing panel in your favor.
Whether or not letters of recommendation will actually help your disciplinary case depends very much on the reasons why you are appearing before the hearing panel in the first place – in other words, the misconduct that your Board of Nursing is accusing you of having committed. The Lento Law Firm's Professional License Defense Team can help you decide when letters of recommendation might help you at your hearing. Call us today at 888.535.3686 or use our contact form to schedule a confidential consultation to discuss your case and hear how we can help defend your license and your future.
What Evidence Will the Hearing Panel Consider at My Nursing Disciplinary Hearing?
Nursing disciplinary cases tend to be focused on the facts – the particular misconduct that the nurse is accused of having committed, and what the evidence is that supports the BON's allegations that the nurse has committed that misconduct.
This is done for two reasons: one, it helps prevent unfair surprises that can result when evidence that does not directly relate to the allegations of misconduct is presented. And two, as a practical matter it helps limit the scope of the hearing so that all parties, including the hearing panel, are not spending time on issues that have little or nothing to do with the alleged misconduct.
This means that for the most part, the evidence that the BON will bring against you at your nursing disciplinary hearing will be the evidence that has been gathered by the BON's investigator. This can include evidence provided to the BON by whoever filed the misconduct complaint against you. Your first concern, then, should be trying to counter that evidence.
For example, if a witness testifies that you did or did not do something on a certain day, your attorney can typically cross-examine that witness by asking questions to challenge their memory of that event. When documents are introduced against you, it may be possible to question whether they are genuine or have been tampered with. These are just examples; the point is that your first defensive efforts should focus on the evidence that the BON is using against you.
In addition to challenging the quality of the BON's evidence against you, you may also have evidence of your own to offer. This kind of evidence may directly support your defense; for example, if you were accused of failing to properly document patient treatment, you may have screenshots or copies of records you created that show you in fact provided the necessary information as and when required. If you're accused of patient abandonment (leaving a patient with no nurse to care for them), you may have evidence showing that a co-worker agreed to or was assigned to care for that patient in your absence.
Deciding how to react to the BON's evidence and what evidence to bring on your own behalf at your nursing disciplinary hearing depends entirely on the facts of your particular case. That's why you want to be working with an experienced attorney from the Lento Law Firm's Professional License Defense Team, someone who will know your case inside and out, and will be able to advise you on the best defense for your particular case.
In many cases, introducing letters of recommendation from patients, colleagues, and employers could help your defense. But in other cases, the hearing panel may consider that information about your conduct in general is not helpful to them in deciding whether you committed misconduct in this particular case, namely the case that is before them at your hearing. Your attorney can help you decide, based on the facts of your misconduct case, whether these kinds of letters are something that you want to offer at your hearing.
Where Does the Evidence Come From That Is Used Against Me at My Nursing Disciplinary Hearing?
When a misconduct complaint is filed against a nurse, that's what will typically trigger your state's BON (or the equivalent regulatory body if it's not the BON in your state) to appoint someone to investigate the allegations. Note that a nurse misconduct complaint can come from any member of the public, though misconduct complaints tend to come from patients or their family members, or from someone the nurse works with such as a supervisor or co-worker.
The investigator will almost always interview the nurse who has been accused of the misconduct. They may also interview the person who filed it, other people the nurse works with, and others who may have been present at the time of the incident (if there was a particular incident that prompted the complaint). But evidence can also include things like work records; patient records; and in some cases even personal records such as bank statements. It all depends on what the accusations are against the nurse.
How broadly the investigator looks into the allegations against you is really up to the investigator. In some cases the scope of the investigation may expand, if the investigator uncovers evidence that suggests you may have committed other types of misconduct. The end result could be that you will face formal charges that are based on something the investigator discovered while looking into a misconduct complaint that was filed against you and not on the misconduct described in the complaint that was brought against you.
It's possible that the BON's investigator may come across favorable information about you, such as a great employee review or complementary emails or letters sent to your employer that have been made part of your employee file. That doesn't mean that this information will be presented by the investigator to the BON. Generally, if the information doesn't directly support (or disprove) the allegations made against you, the investigator may choose to disregard it when preparing their report for the BON.
This may leave you to decide whether it makes sense in your case to try to introduce letters of recommendation or references from existing or past employers or work colleagues at your nursing disciplinary hearing. This is a strategic question, one that an experienced professional license defense attorney can help you answer.
Can I Provide the BON With Letters of Recommendation or References Before My Hearing?
Of course, it is possible to send the BON one or more letters of recommendation or references from current or past employers or work colleagues during the investigation phase of your misconduct proceeding. You could provide this information both to the investigator assigned to your case, and to the BON itself. In some cases, you could also provide it if you are given a chance to review the investigator's draft or final report and comment on it.
Another time when this information might be helpful is if your attorney is negotiating with the BON to resolve your case without a hearing. When your attorney can argue that you're a good person and a good nurse and also back that up with references from employers or colleagues, it could help resolve your case in a more favorable way, one that will protect your license and your future.
But these are judgment calls, and whether and when to provide this kind of reference information is something that an experienced professional license defense attorney from the Lento Law Firm can advise you about. It's also worth understanding that the BON is not necessarily the same as the hearing panel you would appear before if your misconduct case reaches that stage. Whether to provide the hearing panel with references is a separate question from whether to provide the BON with that information.
When you are working with the Lento Law Firm's Professional License Defense Team, you will have someone on your side who has years of experience defending nurses and other professionals in license disciplinary cases. All of that experience and understanding of the laws, rules, and procedures that apply in nursing disciplinary cases will be used to your benefit by your attorney – to fight for your defense, to protect your rights, and to resolve your case in as favorable a way as possible.
Is There a Reason Why I Should Not Present Letters of Recommendation or References at My Nursing Disciplinary Hearing?
This is another one of those questions that can best be answered in the context of your particular disciplinary case. But generally, if you've reached the hearing stage it means you've not been able to resolve your case through negotiation with the BON. You definitely want the hearing panel to believe that you are taking the allegations against you seriously. And that usually means focusing first on defending yourself against the allegations by facing the evidence that the BON is using against you, and countering that evidence or calling it into question as much as possible.
If you fail to do that, then it's probably not going to matter how many favorable letters of reference you can give to the hearing panel. Their decision on your disciplinary case will be based on whether they believe the evidence against you. And if your only counter to that evidence is one or more letters of recommendation, the panel might get the impression that you don't take the allegations made against you seriously.
The point is that a letter of recommendation or reference is not going to be able to protect you against evidence that shows you committed misconduct. While it might have some impact on the sanction that the hearing panel imposes on you, if you aren't able to counter or question the evidence that the BON brings against you, a letter from your employer saying that you're a good nurse is probably not going to help you win your case.
One other thing to keep in mind is that if you do provide a letter of reference as part of your defense, the BON may ask to have the person who wrote that letter appear before the hearing panel in person so that the BON's lawyer can question them about you and your work. That can open the door for the person to be forced to discuss any instances where you did not perform as well as the letter of recommendation suggests.
Again, all of this means that your best approach is to work with one of the experienced attorneys from the Lento Law Firm's Professional License Defense Team, someone who can help you decide what your best defense will be and how to present that defense at your nursing misconduct hearing.
The Lento Law Firm's Professional License Defense Team Can Help
Being accused of nursing misconduct and reaching the stage of your misconduct case where the future of your license depends on the outcome of a hearing can be an extremely stressful and uncertain experience. It's not one that anyone should ever face alone. Your best chance at a favorable outcome is to be working with one of the experienced attorneys from the Lento Law Firm's Professional License Defense Team.
Our nursing license defense attorneys understand what it takes to defend against and win nursing misconduct cases at the hearing stage. We will work with you to gather the evidence you need to counter the evidence being used against you by the BON. At your hearing, we will test the testimony of any witnesses that the BON has by vigorously cross-examining them. We'll argue against allowing the BON to introduce any unreliable evidence against you. We'll bring evidence in your favor that the BON has failed to find or has found but decided not to use.
We have years of experience helping nurses and other health care professionals across the US defend themselves against misconduct allegations. Our attorneys know what it takes to reach a successful outcome and will fight for you and your license so that you can continue to practice as a nurse.
When is the best time to contact the Lento Law Firm's Professional License Defense Team for help? As soon as you learn that someone has filed a misconduct complaint against you. That's when we can do the most to help you protect your license and your future. But we can also help even if you bring us into the case after a hearing has been scheduled. In our experience, there is always something we can do to protect our client's rights and to defend them against the nursing misconduct allegations they are facing. So, if you've put off contacting a lawyer because you hoped your nursing discipline case would go away, but it hasn't, give us a call – it's not too late!
Call the Lento Law Firm's Professional License Defense Team today at 888.535.3686 or use our contact form to schedule a confidential consultation. Tell us about your nursing misconduct case, and hear from us how we can help protect your license and your future.
