Staffing agency nurses have a good state in which to practice when they have chosen Delaware as their professional home. Delaware has a diverse economy, a beautiful Atlantic Coast environment, and a stable and friendly population. Delaware residents have similar substantial needs for home healthcare nursing and facility nursing care as residents of other states also need. Delaware's population centers in and around Wilmington, Dover, Newark, Middletown, Bear, Glasgow, Brookside, Hockessin, Smyrna, Milford, Pine Creek Valley, Odessa, Claymont, North Star, and other locations are generally easily accessible for traveling staffing agencies nurses, with appropriate conveniences. Delaware also offers substantial nurse employment opportunities with staffing agencies like All Medical Personnel, Medical Staffing Network, Favorite Healthcare Staffing, Health Carousel, AMN Healthcare, TinkBird Healthcare Staffing, TrueCare 24, Trinity Home Health, and Trinity Healthcare Staffing. Keep disciplinary charges from threatening, diminishing, or destroying your Delaware staffing agency nursing practice. Call 888.535.3686 or complete this contact form now to put the Lento Law Firm's premier Professional License Defense Team to work for you, protecting your Delaware agency nursing.
Delaware Staffing Agency Nurse Investment
Consider for a moment the substantial investment you've made that Delaware Board of Nursing disciplinary charges threaten. Your nursing education alone costs you years of study and many thousands of dollars in tuition cost, room, board, and foregone earnings. Your NCLEX examination required additional arduous study, effort, and expense, as did the clinical experience and other character and competence you had to demonstrate for Delaware Board of Nursing licensure. You have also likely invested more than you immediately realize in your Delaware staffing agency employment. You have had to win the opportunity and gain the trust of your staffing agency employer. You have also likely built valuable relationships at the facilities to which your staffing agency assigned you and among the patients for whom you have cared. All of these investments have gained you the income, employment benefits, and employment security you presently enjoy. However, Delaware Board of Nursing charges also place all that investment at risk of loss.
Delaware Staffing Agency Nurse Employment Benefits
When deciding how to handle your Delaware Board of Nursing disciplinary charges, also don't overlook the other benefits of your Delaware staffing agency employment. Your staffing agency employment offers you more than the steady and rewarding income you earn, and the health insurance and other employment benefit you and your family members may enjoy. You also benefit from the flexibility, variety, education, and travel that your staffing agency employment offers. Nurses with direct hospital or other facility employment may work for years or even decades in a single location, doing largely the same thing, under the same supervision, for the same or similar patients. Your Delaware staffing agency employment, though, enables you to move among facilities, work with new staff, do new tasks, using new methods for new patient populations. You are constantly growing, learning, and expanding your professional network. You may also be choosing your preferred assignments. Let us help you protect those additional benefits with our strategic and skilled nursing license defense services.
Delaware Staffing Agency Facility Challenges
The above introduction paints a relatively rosy picture of Delaware staffing agency nursing practice. But you also know that the picture isn't always that rosy. Your status as a so-called temp can expose you to disadvantages in the workplace, including additional risks of nursing disciplinary charges. The healthcare facility to which your staffing agency assigned you may have permanent, direct employment nurses and other healthcare workers in addition to your staffing agency nursing. If so, the facility may prefer those employees over you, believing that the investment the facility makes in recruiting, training, and retaining those employees justifies your differential and lesser treatment. Facility employees may not respect, include, or value you in the way they do their employee co-workers. They may even unfairly blame and scapegoat you for wrongs they commit, knowing that the facility will take their side in any dispute with you. The facility may then deny you its procedural safeguards, leaving you without a misconduct hearing or defense. Let us help you address your facility issues so that you do not face license disciplinary charges.
Delaware Nurse Staffing Agency Challenges
Your challenges as a Delaware staffing agency nurse aren't just with your assigned facility and its personnel. Your own Delaware staffing agency may likewise treat you as expendable, especially when comparing your value with the value your staffing agency assigns to its facility clients. You should reasonably expect your staffing agency's defense when falsely accused of nursing misconduct. But you may not get that help if your staffing agency prefers to take the side of its valued client. Your staffing agency may thus deprive you of its own contractual commitment to your fair treatment and may just let you go, leaving you to blame for misconduct others committed. You could then face Delaware Board of Nursing charges that you would not have faced if your staffing agency had simply done its due diligence to investigate and protect you. Let us help you deal with your staffing agency issues to ensure you do not face the Delaware Board of Nursing disciplinary charges and that you get the best possible outcome to any such charges.
Delaware Board of Nursing Disciplinary Charges
Simply put, Delaware staffing agency nurses may face greater risks of Delaware Board of Nursing disciplinary charges and sanctions than employee nurses whom hospitals, medical offices, and other facilities may aggressively defend and protect. You may be on your own to explain suspected misconduct, manage patient and patient family member relationships, and overcome unfounded and even deluded or retaliatory allegations of misconduct. As a temp nurse, you could even see yourself becoming the scapegoat for facility, supervisor, physician, and co-worker failures. Beware your tenuous status as a staffing agency nurse when misconduct rumors or allegations surface. Let us help you respond promptly, truthfully, strategically, and effectively to avoid formal Board of Nursing disciplinary charges if at all possible. Let us represent and defend you if you are already involved in a Delaware Board of Nursing disciplinary proceeding.
Delaware Board of Nursing Disciplinary Authority
The Delaware Board of Nursing has the Delaware legislature's authority to discipline nurses whom the Board licenses. Don't doubt the Board's authority and resolve. 24 Delaware Code Section 1906 expressly authorizes the Board of Nursing to “conduct hearings upon charges calling for discipline of a licensee or revocation of a license.” You must not practice nursing in Delaware without a valid Board of Nursing license. 24 Delaware Code Section 1925 threatens a $1,000 fine and up to a year in jail for anyone who practices without a license or pretends to hold a license. You must deal with the Delaware Board of Nursing's disciplinary charges if you hope and intend to continue your Delaware staffing agency nursing practice. You also won't likely get another nursing license in a different state if you lose your Delaware license to serious misconduct charges. States share license discipline through the Nursys national database. Let us help you defend and defeat the current Delaware charges rather than risk Delaware license discipline that affects your prospects for licensure nationwide.
Delaware Board of Nursing Disciplinary Impacts
Losing your Delaware Board of Nursing license to disciplinary charges means more than losing your right and privilege to practice nursing in the state. It also very likely means losing your staffing agency employment and any other employment that draws on your nursing education. You may be able to find an administrative post that does not require your clinical practice of nursing and thus does not technically require a current valid nursing license. But employers offering those positions typically use the nursing license credential as certification of the candidate's good qualifications. You may not need the license for the job, but you may not get the job without the license. Even if the Delaware Board of Nursing discipline does not suspend or revoke your license, your staffing agency may terminate your employment just to avoid the embarrassment and reputational and liability risks of employing a nurse who suffered discipline. Watch out for these collateral impacts of the Delaware Board of Nursing discipline. Get our help to keep your nursing license record as clean as possible.
Delaware Agency Nurse Disciplinary Sanctions
Delaware's Board of Nursing can do more than just suspend or revoke your nursing license. 24 Delaware Code Section 1922 authorizes the Board of Nursing to censure, reprimand, limit, condition, or refuse to issue or renew your license, place you on license probation, or “take any other disciplinary action” in addition or alternative to your license's suspension or permanent revocation. The Board of Nursing's discretion to impose conditions and take other disciplinary action instead of license suspension or revocation can give our attorneys the opportunity to work with you in advance, to propose to the Board of Nursing that it accept your remedial education, training, evaluation, counseling, or treatment, or other readily achievable, non-punitive measures, in place of any discipline. Creative, win-win compromises of this type can benefit both the Board of Nursing in ensuring patient and public protection and you in retaining your license and staffing agency employment.
Delaware Board of Nursing Disciplinary Actions
Any discipline you suffer at the hands of the Delaware Board of Nursing is likely to be public, not private. Delaware's Division of Professional Regulation publishes Board of Nursing disciplinary actions in a searchable online database that includes the nurse's name, license number, misconduct, and discipline. Your staffing agency employer, the facilities to which it assigns you, licensing boards in other states, licensing boards for other certifications you may hold, your patients and their family members, your professional colleagues, and your friends and family members may all discover your embarrassing and concerning discipline, adversely affecting all those relationships. You may also have a duty to report your discipline to your staffing agency employer, facilities where you worked, the board governing any other licenses you hold, and any license applications or renewal forms. Fight the charges with our help rather than face these potentially crippling disclosures.
Grounds for Delaware Agency Nurse Discipline
24 Delaware Code Section 1922 lists thirteen grounds on which Delaware's Board of Nursing may suspend, revoke, or otherwise discipline your license. Board of Nursing disciplinary officials should not be making up the grounds. They should instead be pointing to the statutory authority for your discipline. However, the statutory grounds are broad enough to give disciplinary authorities relatively broad discretion over what charges to issue and with what justification. Proving misconduct may come down to customary nursing practices and general professional standards, rather than any specific list of articulated wrongs. Consider these examples along with how we may be able to defend you on those charges.
Credential Fraud as Grounds for Delaware Agency Nurse Discipline
24 Delaware Code Section 1922 authorizes the Delaware Board of Nursing to discipline your nursing license if you were “guilty of fraud or deceit in procuring or attempting to procure a license to practice nursing.” Examples of credential fraud could include cheating on the NCLEX or other nursing examinations, lying on your license application, or omitting convictions or other disqualifying events from your application or renewal form. We may be able to help defend credential fraud charges by showing that your license applications were accurate, any inaccuracies were immaterial and accidental rather than deliberate, material, and fraudulent, and any omissions were likewise unintentional and immaterial to your license approval.
Criminal Conviction as Grounds for Delaware Agency Nurse Discipline
24 Delaware Code Section 1922 authorizes the Delaware Board of Nursing to discipline your nursing license for conviction of a crime “that is substantially related to the practice of nursing.” Examples of disqualifying convictions may include violent crimes like homicide, crimes of dishonesty like criminal fraud, and crimes of moral turpitude like sexual assault and indecent exposure. We may be able to help defend these charges by showing that you did not suffer the alleged conviction, a trial or appellate court reversed the conviction for legal or factual error, or the conviction was not for a disqualifying crime.
Unfitness as Grounds for Delaware Agency Nurse Discipline
24 Delaware Code Section 1922 authorizes the Delaware Board of Nursing to discipline your nursing license if you are “unfit or incompetent by reason of negligence, habits, or other causes.” Examples include gross errors in nursing practice, showing that you lack the requisite knowledge and skill, carelessness following physician orders, exposing patients to injury, and injurious medication errors. We may be able to help defend such charges by showing that you did not commit the alleged errors, that your nursing met customary standards for competence, that others were responsible for the alleged errors, or that you followed reasonable instructions of a physician or nurse supervisor as a safe harbor.
Substance Abuse as Grounds for Delaware Agency Nurse Discipline
24 Delaware Code Section 1922 authorizes the Delaware Board of Nursing to discipline your nursing license if you are “habitually intemperate” or “addicted to the use of habit-forming drugs.” We may be able to help defend substance abuse charges by showing that you do not abuse substances, the reports or suspicions were unfounded or based on innocent medication reactions or other innocent causes, or you have already addressed any issue such that your nursing practice never presented and no longer presents any risk.
Physical Impairment as Grounds for Delaware Agency Nurse Discipline
24 Delaware Code Section 1922 authorizes the Delaware Board of Nursing to discipline your nursing license if you have “a physical condition such that the performance of nursing service is or may be injurious or prejudicial to patients or to the public.” Examples include orthopedic issues preventing you from lifting, turning, or otherwise caring for patients, vision impairment, or an infectious disease against which you cannot protect patients. We may be able to help defend such charges by showing that you are not physically impaired, any impairment does not affect patients or the public, or that you have already addressed and recovered from the impairment such that you do not present any patient or public risk.
Unprofessionalism as Grounds for Delaware Agency Nurse Discipline
24 Delaware Code Section 1922 authorizes the Delaware Board of Nursing to discipline your nursing license if you have been “guilty of unprofessional conduct or the wilful neglect of a patient.” Examples of unprofessionalism include patient abuse or neglect, insubordination toward superiors, disrespect of professional colleagues, co-workers, and subordinates, inappropriate relationships with patients, and poor hygiene, dress, or demeanor. We may be able to help defend such charges by showing that you did not engage in the alleged unprofessional conduct or that complainants misidentified you or are unlawfully retaliating against you.
Delaware Agency Nurse Disciplinary Procedures
Delaware's nursing laws guarantee you the constitutional due process that state agencies owe when adversely affecting an individual's property or liberty interests. 24 Delaware Code Section 1922 details the administrative procedures that the Board of Nursing must follow before imposing discipline against your nursing license. Those procedures begin with an agency investigation of complaints or reports of nursing misconduct. If the Board determines that the investigation report warrants formal disciplinary charges, the Board must serve the report and charges on the accused nurse. After appropriate pre-hearing procedures, the Board holds a formal hearing to which it may compel and at which it may swear witnesses for testimony. You have the right to retain us to cross-examine adverse witnesses at that hearing.
Delaware Agency Nurse Appeal Procedures
If you have already lost your Delaware Board of Nursing hearing, then we can help you invoke the appeal right for which the same statute, 24 Delaware Code Section 1922, provides. While the statute states that Board of Nursing decisions are final, the statute authorizes an aggrieved nurse to file a civil action for Superior Court review within thirty days of the postmarked Board of Nursing decision. Let our attorneys help you with that appeal. We may also be able to negotiate alternative special relief with the Board of Nursing's disciplinary officials or other oversight officials.
Delaware Board of Nursing Alternative Discipline Program
If your Delaware Board of Nursing disciplinary charges have to do with a substance abuse issue, then you may have the opportunity to seek an alternative-to-discipline program referral. The Delaware Board of Nursing exercised its statutory and regulatory authority to approve the Delaware Division of Professional Regulation's Delaware Professionals' Health Monitoring Program (DPHMP). That program provides nurses and other healthcare professionals who have substance abuse issues with evaluation, counseling, treatment, and monitoring services. While you may benefit from any or all of those services, your formal entry into the DPHMP program may require you to relinquish your license, is possible only if you have not allegedly committed a disciplinable offense, and may require you to comply with arduous testing and reporting for years after you have recovered. Do not consent to the DPHMP program without our review and advice. You may be able to accomplish the same goal on your own so that we can present your recovery to disciplinary officials for charge dismissal.
Delaware Agency Nurse Misconduct Defense
The Lento Law Firm's premier Professional License Defense Team is available in Wilmington, Dover, Newark, Middletown, Bear, Glasgow, Brookside, Hockessin, Smyrna, Milford, Pine Creek Valley, Odessa, Claymont, North Star, and other Delaware locations for your Delaware Board of Nursing disciplinary charge defense. You have your entire nursing career at stake when facing Delaware Board of Education disciplinary charges. Don't risk your career by remaining unrepresented or by retaining unqualified local criminal defense counsel. Get the skilled, experienced, and highly qualified representation you need for your best outcome. Hundreds of nurses and other professionals have succeeded in retaining their licenses after retaining our services. Call 888.535.3686 or complete this contact form now.
