If you are a licensed nurse, we don’t need to tell you that your profession can be enormously stressful at times. Whether that stress is specifically tied to the types of patients you care for, or the general work conditions at your job, or both, one of your challenges as a nurse is to manage that stress on a daily basis. One thing that can amplify that stress considerably is being accused of professional misconduct.
It’s not unusual for nurses to make mistakes. Nobody is perfect. But having to defend yourself against misconduct allegations when you know you’ve done something that you shouldn’t have can be challenging. In many cases, however, showing that you did not intend to make the mistake you did can be an effective defense that can prevent you from facing disciplinary sanctions that may linger on your public record for years. The LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team is here to defend you when you’ve been accused of misconduct. Contact us at 888.535.3686 or fill out our online contact form to learn more about how we can help.
Mistakes Happen
Let’s get one thing out of the way to begin with. Everybody makes mistakes – even nurses. And when mistakes happen, it’s not unusual for those affected by the mistakes to complain. Whether that complaint is directed to the nurse’s employer or to the state entity that licenses nurses, the consequences can end up changing the nurse’s career path for the worse and can follow them for years to come.
But just because a nurse made a mistake doesn’t mean they deserve to be sanctioned for it. There are many factors that may contribute to the situation that resulted in the mistake happening. In many cases, some or all of these factors are out of the nurse’s control. When that’s the case, it can often be enormously helpful to raise those issues with the employer or licensing body as a defense against allegations that the nurse committed misconduct that deserves to be sanctioned.
Why Intent Matters
Nursing practice standards exist for one primary reason: to protect the well-being of patients. Nurses who knowingly breach those standards can face serious discipline for putting their patients in jeopardy. In those cases, sanctions are issued to punish the nurse for choosing to commit one or more acts that could have harmed or did harm one or more patients.
In other cases, however, other causes contributed to the breach that the nurse committed. The nurse never intended to do anything that could harm a patient or violate their state’s nurse practice act, but may have done so inadvertently. When that happens, those other causes may be raised as a defense against punishing the nurse for the breach.
Examples of Outside Causes for Alleged Misconduct
Here are some examples of situations that can lead to a nurse inadvertently making a mistake that could result in the nurse facing sanctions.
- Inadequate Staffing. When there aren’t enough nurses for the care that is required, patient care can suffer. When a patient is harmed as a result, the nurse who was on duty at the time may be the one who is blamed for that harm – even if they were simply “at the wrong place at the wrong time.”
- Poor Training. A nurse who isn’t properly trained for the care they are required to give is more likely to make mistakes. There is some amount of “on the job” learning that is, of course, part of every nurse’s education, but without proper training, a nurse is more likely to make unintentional mistakes than one who has received the training required for the care they are giving.
- Bad Communication. Communication is hugely important in health care. In the hospital setting, for example, caregivers must make sure that the next shift knows all of the important details concerning the care of each patient. Patient records need to include vast amounts of information about the care that the patient has received. If one nurse fails to record the information that the next nurse needs in order to do their job, the patient may suffer as a result.
- Unclear Orders. This is a form of bad communication, but is more directly tied to how the nurse is supervised. Nurses who receive orders that are ambiguous, unclear, or incomplete can mistakenly provide the wrong kind of care for a patient. When the patient is harmed as a result, the nurse can end up as the scapegoat.
- Technology Failures. Medicine is increasingly dependent on technology. But machines sometimes fail to do what they’re designed to. In some cases, the failure is obvious, and the nurse can react in time to avert a crisis. But other times the defect may be hidden, such as with an electronic health care records system or computerized provider order entry system. Errors with these systems can prevent the nurse from getting or recording important patient information or can result in incorrect medications being administered to the patient.
These are some of the kinds of situations that can result in the nurse inadvertently failing to provide the proper level of care to a patient. Sometimes the errors are caught before any damage is done, but other times patients are harmed as a result.
The LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team is ready to defend you if you’re a nurse who has been accused of misconduct for any reason. And when those accusations are based on incidents where you had no intention of committing any type of nursing practice violation, we are ready to go to bat for you with your employer and with your state’s Board of Nursing (or equivalent licensing agency).
How Lack of Intent Can Make a Difference
As noted above, there is an arguable difference between violations of your state’s Nurse Practice Act that are intentional and those that are based on honest mistakes. Nursing boards realize this, and in many cases will react differently if there is proof that the nurse made an “honest mistake” or a mistake that was arguably the result of some other issue that the nurse had no control over.
The two general types of responses that nursing boards will have to nurse misconduct are punishment and education. A nurse who is found to have intentionally committed misconduct risks being punished, with sanctions that can include being suspended from their practice or even the loss of their nursing license.
But when a nurse can show that they tried to do the right thing but failed to do so for some other reason, the consequence may be significantly less severe. The board may, for example, require the nurse to take certain types of educational courses to help them avoid making the same mistake in the future. Or, where the facts support it, the nurse may not be disciplined at all. Instead, the licensing board’s attention may turn to whoever is responsible for the issues that led to the nurse making the mistake in the first place.
At the LLF National Law Firm, our Professional License Defense Team has years of experience helping nurses all across the country defend themselves against misconduct allegations. We know how to dig into the facts of each case to learn as much as possible about what happened, and to use that information to build the strongest defense possible.
What Nurses Can Do to Help
There are steps that you, as a nurse, can take to help improve the chances that, if you do commit a mistake, you will be able to show that the mistake was unintentional. These are basic types of strategies, ones you probably learned years ago, but were taught for a reason and are worth highlighting.
- Take Contemporaneous Notes. Where you are required to make a record of the care you have provided a patient, do so as soon as possible, as the care is being given. Take care to make sure the record you make is detailed, clear, and complete so that others can understand it – and so you can show that you followed standard protocols.
- Own Up to Mistakes Quickly. If you make a mistake, report it as soon as possible through the appropriate channels for doing so. You want to be able to show that your focus is the same as your nursing board’s focus – on the care and well-being of your patients. You don’t want to give the impression that you are trying to hide anything.
- Be Consistent. Follow your organization’s protocols on a regular basis. This way, even if doing so resulted in a mistake, you will be able to point to those protocols as support for your defense that your mistake was not intentional.
- Show You Are Up to Date. Most states require nurses to take continuing education in order to maintain their licenses. Showing that you are up to date with your CE requirements can add support to your defense that your mistake was not intentional. And if your state does not require continuing education, showing that you take CE courses anyway can also help.
What to Do When a Complaint is Made Against You
Every state’s nursing board or equivalent licensing agency has its own procedures when it comes to investigating misconduct allegations made against nurses. At the LLF National Law Firm, our Professional License Defense Team defends nurses all across the country who face allegations that they’ve violated their state’s nurse practice act. And even though each state has its own procedures, we know that there are typical steps that are part of the process. These include:
- The Investigation. After a complaint is filed, the board of nursing will review it to make sure it alleges the kind of misconduct that the board regulates. If the complaint does so, it will typically be assigned to an investigator whose job it is to uncover facts that relate to the allegations. You will almost certainly be interviewed as part of the investigation process. This is when it can be enormously helpful to be working with one of the experienced attorneys from the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team. We can prepare you for your interview and even be there with you when it happens. We’ll make sure you’re ready for what can be a challenging process, and that your rights are protected from start to finish.
- Formal Charges. Depending on the outcome of the investigation, your case may be closed, or the state nursing board may move forward with formal charges against you. If that happens, this is often the time when the outcome can be negotiated. With the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team on your side, your chances of a favorable negotiated outcome increase because we regularly do this for our nursing clients all across the country. Particularly in situations where any violation was unintentional, we can help resolve things in a way that has the least impact on your license, your job, and your future.
- Hearings and Appeals. When misconduct cases don’t settle, they will typically go to a formal hearing. There will be specific procedures that must be followed when that happens. When matters reach this stage, you will benefit from having one of our experienced professional license defense attorneys by your side. We’ll present your defense in the strongest way possible and will make sure your rights are respected throughout the entire process. If the results of the hearing go against you, we are also able to help you with any appeal.
The LLF National Law Firm is Here to Help With Nurse Disciplinary Allegations
If you are a nurse who has been accused of misconduct, you need a strong defense. This is even more important in situations where you agree about what the nursing board accuses you of doing, but your defense is that you did not intend to commit misconduct. It can be very challenging to make this kind of an argument because you will need to provide support for it.
Gathering that support can be an enormous challenge. The LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team is up to it. We know what it takes to defend against misconduct allegations, and what types of evidence will support a defense that any misconduct was unintentional and therefore should not result in formal sanctions against the accused nurse. We know the laws, regulations, rules, and procedures that apply in nursing misconduct cases, and we are ready to use our experience to help you if you’ve been accused of nursing misconduct.
Contact the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team today if you’ve been accused of any kind of nursing misconduct. The sooner you do so, the more we will be able to help. Call us at 888.535.3686, or fill out our online contact form. We’ll schedule a confidential consultation so you can tell us about the allegations you’re facing, and we can explain how we will help.