If you are a nurse and are facing allegations that you have committed any kind of misconduct, or if you have already been sanctioned for past misconduct, you may be wondering whether there is anything you can do to show your state’s Board of Nursing that you have changed for the better. The general answer to this question is yes. But what you should do will vary greatly depending on the kind of misconduct you’re accused of.
In addition to taking positive steps to demonstrate your genuine interest in improving yourself, if you are facing a disciplinary investigation or proceeding from your Board of Nursing, you need a strong defense. The best way to make sure you have one is to be working with an experienced attorney from the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team. To learn more about the ways we can help protect your nursing license and your future, contact us at 888.535.3686 or fill out our online contact form. We’ll schedule a confidential consultation where you can tell us about the allegations you’re facing, and we can explain how we are able to help.
What Steps You Take Depend on the Issues You’ve Faced
In order to effectively show your state’s Board of Nursing that you are serious about making changes that you believe may help you with any potential disciplinary issues, it is important to make sure your efforts are properly focused. To do that, you need to have a good understanding of what may be behind any misconduct allegations you are facing or have faced in the past.
If, for example, you have been disciplined for failing to properly make a record of the care that was given to a patient, your focus when it comes to self-improvement could be on taking courses that will give you a better understanding of when and how you are required to do that. If, on the other hand, you have been accused of working while under the influence of alcohol or drugs, your efforts may need to include showing that you are actively getting treatment for those kinds of issues.
In other words, your extra efforts need to relate somehow to the misconduct you’re alleged to have committed. It won’t do you much good if, for example, the focus of a disciplinary investigation is on substance abuse and you point out that you’ve taken a continuing education course on arterial blood pressure monitoring.
If you’re unsure of what steps to take to show your state’s nursing board that you are serious about addressing the root causes of any misconduct you may have been charged with, consult with the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional Defense Team about it. We can help direct your efforts towards steps that will both help you as a nurse and show your nursing board that you are serious about improving yourself.
Different Situations Require Different Approaches
There are many ways that a nurse can actively improve their skills or address personal issues in a way that can provide their board of nursing with some assurances that the nurse is serious about improving their skills or their conduct. Here are some:
Continuing Education Courses
Taking courses that focus on areas where a nurse has been found to be in need of improvement is an excellent way for the nurse to show that they are serious about trying to improve. Ideally, the course or courses you take will relate in some way to the care issues that you have been accused of having. For example:
- A Nursing Ethics course can help inform and remind you of what your ethical obligations are in a variety of settings. There are courses that focus on decision-making, on the obligations of a nurse acting as a preceptor, or on specific provisions of the American Nurses Association Code of Ethics.
- A Nursing Documentation course can refresh your knowledge of current professional standards for documenting patient care, as well as highlighting common types of documentation mistakes that nurses can make.
- A course on Medication Administration can update your understanding about the basic principles of medication administration, reducing patient risks when administering medication, and legal requirements related to administering certain medications.
- Taking a continuing education course on Professional Boundaries can enhance your knowledge of the principles and regulations that relate to establishing and maintaining nurse-patient boundaries in the health care setting.
General Nurse Refresher Course
These can be particularly helpful for nurses who are returning to the profession after an extended absence. But they can also be helpful in situations where a nurse has faced allegations of a number of different types of practice-quality issues, to show that the nurse is serious about improving. To be effective, however, the course needs to address the issues that were problems for the nurse.
Professional Certifications
Securing a professional certification in areas such as a Critical Care RN, Certified Emergency Nurse, Family Nurse Practitioner, and others can be a challenge. But doing so will boost your understanding of the practice requirements for the specialty area covered by the certification. These typically involve a substantial amount of time and effort, so securing a professional certification can show that you are serious about improving your skills.
Get Mentor or Peer Support
Look for a nurse mentoring program or peer support group in your area. These can be an effective way of sharing the challenges you are facing as a nurse with others who can help you develop strategies to overcome them. Mentors or fellow members of a peer support group will often be people you can turn to informally for help when practice-related problems begin to seem overwhelming.
Make a Professional Development Plan
This is something a nurse can do with the help of a supervisor or mentor. It is a structured approach to taking the steps necessary to help the nurse achieve a particular set of professional goals (sometimes called “SMART” goals – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound). It is a detailed way of helping the nurse understand what is required to take them from where their practice is to where they want their practice to be. A PDP can help underscore your ongoing efforts to improve practice areas that have been the focus of misconduct allegations or sanctions.
Enroll in a Rehabilitation Program
This is for cases where the nurse is accused of substance-abuse-related misconduct. Most states have an alternative-to-discipline program that will hold off on formally disciplining a nurse for alcohol- or drug-related nursing issues if the nurse enters and successfully completes a program of rehabilitation. These state-approved programs can be very challenging to complete. Sometimes it is possible for the nurse to defend themselves against disciplinary action by showing that the nurse is actively receiving counseling or is in a treatment program, even if it is not the one that is part of the state’s alternative-to-discipline program.
Take Extra Training
When your disciplinary issue relates to a specific practice-related error that you made, it can be helpful to show that you have taken extra training that focuses on that specific issue. It doesn’t have to be a continuing education course; in many cases, it’s training that is available at the hospital or care home where you work.
Follow the Terms of Consent Orders
Many nursing disciplinary cases will be resolved with an agreement – often called a “consent order” – where the nurse will admit to certain types of misconduct, and the nursing board will impose a sanction on the nurse, but will also agree to suspend the sanction so long as the nurse does certain things. These things can include taking specific continuing education courses, paying a fine, and making regular reports to the nursing board. If you have entered into a consent order as a result of an earlier disciplinary case, it is vital that you follow the requirements of your consent order exactly. It is also an excellent way to show the board that you take the discipline seriously and do not intend to let it repeat in the future.
Do Something Extra
Getting actively involved in a nursing-related group, such as the American Nurses Association, or a specialty-focused practice group, such as the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses, can show your commitment to giving back to the profession. Nurses who volunteer with local charities in a nursing-related role can also demonstrate their efforts to help the public. These types of efforts should normally come after the nurse has addressed any issues with the quality of the care that they themselves provide to patients.
The LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team is ready to share the benefits that come with our years of experience helping nurses all over the country defend themselves against misconduct allegations. We know the issues that are important to nursing boards, and can advise you on steps you can take to show how dedicated you are to becoming the best professional possible.
When to Bring Your Extra Efforts to the Board’s Attention
If you’re involved in an ongoing misconduct investigation or disciplinary proceeding, you can’t expect your state’s board of nursing to automatically know when you are taking your own steps to improve yourself as a nurse. They won’t know without being told that you’ve taken certain courses, received specific training, or have embarked on a long-term development plan designed to help avoid future practice-related issues. So when do you bring your efforts to the board’s attention?
This really depends on where your case is at. If it is still in the investigation stage, the board’s investigator can be informed about the work that you are doing. In most states, the investigator’s report will include a lot of information relating to the accusations made against the nurse. It can also include information about the work you are doing on your own to improve your practice skills or get the treatment you need to make sure you do not have the same problems in the future.
At the LLF National Law Firm, our experienced professional license defense attorneys regularly help licensed nurses during the investigation stage of their disciplinary cases. We know how to provide information to the board’s investigator and how to highlight the relevance of that information to the investigation.
If your state’s board decides after the investigation to move forward with disciplinary charges against you, this is another opportunity to let the board know of the work you’ve been doing to improve yourself. The LLF National Law Firm can help here as well.
Note that, as a practical matter, most nursing disciplinary cases are resolved with an agreement between the nurse and the licensing board. Those agreements are typically negotiated. This negotiation phase is another time where we can make sure the board knows about the efforts you’ve been making on your own to improve yourself as a nurse. Those steps can help convince the board to resolve your case in a way that is more favorable than it might be otherwise.
The LLF National Law Firm Can Help You With Nursing Disciplinary Matters
At the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team, we defend nurses all across the country against misconduct allegations. We know that if you have been accused of any kind of nursing-related misconduct, your defense needs to consider not only the details of the allegations made against you, but also the big picture – how those allegations relate to your performance as a nurse overall.
Our experienced attorneys know how to pay close attention to details. We will make sure you meet every deadline, that you provide all of the information the board is asking for, and that we know all of the facts that are important for your case.
We will also keep an eye on the big picture. That includes everything in your favor that could influence how the licensing board resolves your case. We are here to do everything we can to help you resolve your nursing disciplinary case in as favorable a way as possible.
To learn more about how the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team can help you protect your nursing license, call us at 888.535.3686, or fill out our online contact form. We will schedule a confidential consultation so that you can tell us about the allegations made against you, and we can explain how we are able to help.