Sabrina Thalblum . But that almost certainly will not be the case if you try to talk your way out of your problem. 1-612-816-8773. allnurses Copyright allnurses.com LLC. She said his physician gave her the go-ahead to administer a small dosage of morphine as a preventative measure, and that she later documented it in her nurses notes. A facility that identifies a diversion problem might bring in any combination of players, from private investigators and local law enforcement to state accreditation boards or the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). When prospective employers are doing reference checks, who are they calling? Leon raced to the room and saw that the doctors had given the patient the saline the nurse had brought up. The paper record was never found, but Bridges said it would not have been the first time that the hospital lost one of her paper records in translation, she said. Rate this book. If you have to surrender yourself in Court, so be it. Should the false accusation take a turn and your employer believes the false statement, you could have a case for a defamation lawsuit. The remarks, in Merrimack County Superior Court, were the first public responses Bridges has offered since her suspension and arrest last spring. Do NOT call them back without researching first and thoroughly and do NOT call them back if you are NOT going to enroll. Im wondering if maybe I was flagged in their system as do not hire because of my prior termination in 2009. Although more people are paying attention to drug diversion due to recent high-profile cases and the current opioid epidemic in the United States, experts say they have been dealing with the same problems their entire careers. If you are a registered nurse and have been recently accused of diverting medication, there are only 2 scenarios: 1.) If your reputation is under attack, Dr. Phil has advice on taking your power back: Accept that there is no way you can erase what has happened. Not just security personnel should be involved with the diversion aspect, he says. I see a lot of doctors standing around and Im thinking uh oh, this patient is going to get saline.. Mitchell explains that all hospitals have different wasting proceduressome require nurses to waste the medication immediately, before they even leave the medication rooms, while others may have a 20-minute window. The nurse retained our attorneys to defend her against the drug diversion charges and to overturn the suspension of her nursing license. 14. You have nothing to hide, so don't hide yourself. PUBLISHED: November 17, 2012 at 12:00 a.m. | UPDATED: September 11, 2018 at 12:00 a.m. A state licensing board and the Attorney General"s Office have accused a vocational nurse of diverting . She has no criminal record. Chapman Law Group has a team of attorneys skilled in representing licensed health professionals in state, federal, and administrative courts during trials and administrative hearings. Human resources, pharmacy personnel, security, everyone is being brought into this investigation, because the bigger picture is patient safety. Specializes in Med-Surg, Trauma, Ortho, Neuro, Cardiac. 1700 Glendale, CA 91203 | 1-818-501-8600Copyright 2010-2012 Spiga & Associates. We show them a box full of clean drug tests. Nurses who work in high paced intensive or critical care units or the emergency room are at particular risk of false allegations based simply on common charting errors. //var LBtag_id = document.getElementById('buylinkLBBridgesTestimony-CM-051916,ph02');
The Royals' New Family Photo Is Causing Major Drama Right Now. 13,952 Posts. Often the reports they generate as to the errors are so complex and confusing that these errors and deceptions are not immediately noticeable. Drug and Alcohol Complaints Before the Missouri Board of Nursing Allegations involving drugs or alcohol are among the most common reasons nurses receive complaints from the Board of Nursing. If we allow this person to resign rather than take action against him, then we dont have to report it.. (Jeremy Blackman can be reached at 369-3319, jblackman@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @JBlackmanCM.). Click the link below to download our compliance eBook now! The employer also may be named in the defamation suit under the theory of Respondeat superior. Drug diversion is a multifactorial and multidisciplinary issue, particularly involving pharmacy, nursing and medical staff. var tag_id = document.getElementById('buylinkBridgesTestimony-CM-051916,ph02');
Posted in Registered Nurses THE PROBLEM OF FALSE AND MISLEADING ACCUSATIONS AGAINST MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS Virtually every healthcare practitioner has seen a colleague fired or disciplined after being accused of diverting drugs or misusing their prescription pad. Expectations Are Changing]. Please spend some time reading the Diversion section of the blog, for more information. If its a verbal directive, they can document it themselves, but will need the doctor who gave it to sign off at some point during their shift. Areas of Law:Nursing License DefenseDrug DiversionSummary Suspension of Nursing LicenseAdministrative Hearings and ComplaintsHealth Professionals Recovery Program (HPRP). Virtually every healthcare practitioner has seen a colleague fired or disciplined after being accused of diverting drugs or misusing their prescription pad. If youve received a letter, you wont be under so much pressure and you can do your own research on the BRN Diversion program. Phillip Jensen, 61, was arrested Monday on eight counts of drug diversion, eight counts of obtaining a controlled substance by fraud, one count of tampering with consumer products, and three . Indirect questions help you as they mean the accuser has to reflect on their own behavior. Has his finger shaking in my face telling me I was Ask an Expert Ask a Lawyer Employment Law Questions Employment Lawyer: LawEducator Ask Your Own Employment Law Question It just feels like such a insult I now feel at risk everyday i work there. Please spend some time reading the Diversion section of the blog, for more information. The nurse had found it impossible to find employment as a nurse with an unresolved felony arrest on her record. So be smart and get a lawyer. Dont start dialing that 1800 number just yet we can help! Designed to give you the foundational knowledge and skills you need to become a more dynamic security professional, including EP specific threat and risk assessment, protective intelligence, advance planning and more. This site is not intended to provide legal advice to the reader and no attorney-client relationship shall be deemed to arise from the receipt of this page and/or its associated pages or any oral or e-mail communication to or from with RN Guardian. Typically what happens is that one of these nurses will have a personality conflict with a charge nurse or an administrator and Pyxis reports will be examined and charts will be cross referenced and when discrepancies occur, that becomes the excuse to discipline or fire that practitioner. Someone is black-balling you; it might be someone you least suspect. I have known a nurse who would fill the medication vial with normal saline after taking out the narcotics and injected the normal saline while injecting the drug im into herself. In Pennsylvania, the law provides protections to people who think they are being domestically abused. These are: hire a defense attorney, He references several high-profile diversion cases in which the diverters used the same syringe full of medicine on both themselves and their patients, spreading bacterial infections and hepatitis. Because of this, diversion shouldnt be considered just a security concern but a patient safety concern, Cichon says. In a few cases, we have even had a nurse accused of diverting because they GAVE more medication than other nurses never mind that they were working tons of overtime, so of course they were giving more! I was brought to a conference room after a night shift in 2009. Department of Justice investigator Mark Myrdek (left) sits on the stand. Controlled substance management is dictated by a number of laws, including the U.S. I am a physician who has been falsely accused of drug diversion, given mandatory fmla and inpatient addiction evaluation versus being fired. This will either be by phone or via a letter. I was falsely accused of drug diversion. This may be the case with some law firms, but it is not the case with us. John Burke, president of the International Health Facility Diversion Association, extrapolated data he obtained from facilities in Ohio to estimate the presence of 37,000 diverters in healthcare facilities across the country each year. If you know that the medication you are accused of diverting is NOT going to show up in a drug test, please go get one on your own. allnurses is a Nursing Career & Support site for Nurses and Students. Leon, who was in charge of diversion investigations at HCMC for 20 years before becoming a consultant for HelioMetrics, was able to investigate but not interview suspected diverters. (NICK REID / Monitor staff)
[5] Take the initiative and invite someone out for coffee who you haven't seen in a while. So I moved on and applied for another ER position in a nearby town (in the same health system as the one in my town) and again received an email saying that they were not interested (I did not even get an interview). That doesnt help. Specializes in Pediatrics, Rehab, Trauma. Recently I applied and interviewed at an ER local to me here in Pa, the interview went fantastic and I was very excited. Our mission is to Empower, Unite, and Advance every nurse, student, and educator. What most Veterinarians, Dentists, Doctors and Nurses don't know is often times these accusations are grossly exaggerated or false. Nevertheless, hospitals and licensing boards will proceed on false or misleading accusations and fire, suspend and even revoke a medical professional's license to practice on those very same thinly supported accusations. Prosecutors will continue cross-examine Bridges today. HCMC has cameras set up in the medication room to monitor controlled substances, and Leon watched as the nurse began gathering prescribed medication for a patient in the emergency department. Its just a question of whether you know it or not.. Perhaps you were falsely accused as a result of the appearance of wrongdoing that was misconstrued by an observer. Carrying it around in your pocket is just asking for trouble. Susan Hayes has been a private detective for healthcare facilities for more than a decade and says the opioid epidemic has magnified the drug diversion problem in recent years. Taking data such as medicine cabinet access, shift hours, time to waste, and departmental access allows software to identify anomalies, such as a nurse whose time to waste is often high, or a doctor who accesses patients files after they have been discharged. Now hang on a minute. Are you sure it was hydromorphone? and she was insisting she had, Leon says. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 52 people in the United States die every day from overdosing on prescription painkillers. Hospital staff called the pattern unusual. HOSPITAL ADMINISTRATORS SOMETIMES DONT TELL THE TRUTH. Healthcare workers are not immune to the draw of opioids. The statistics Ive seen at hospitals that are being proactive and looking at this are finding at least one person a month who is diverting drugs in their facility. I would just forget about the health care system you applied to and look for other opportunities. Kristen Ashley (Goodreads Author) (shelved 3 times as falsely-accused) avg rating 4.41 38,248 ratings published 2011. I am a registered nurse accused of narcotic diversion even after dividing a negative drug screen. Just forget about the health care system you applied to and look for opportunities! In Med-Surg, Trauma, Ortho, Neuro, Cardiac an ER local to me here in Pa, law. 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