Nightmares

It has been a very busy time and so I have been a little delayed in getting posts done. I had a heck of nightmare the other night: I was arrested and I kept telling the Police that I had done nothing wrong but they continued the process making comments like "Yeah, right that is what they all say." When I told my husband, he said the cause of the nightmare was obvious because I am dealing with several cases where we keep telling the Board that they have the facts wrong and that the nurse is actually innocent or that the nurse did something so minor that it does not require action by the Board. Sometimes the Board listens and the case is dismissed and sometimes they don't and we continue in the process.

I get frustrated these days by what I see as the Board forgetting their mission, "to protect the public" because protecting the public means more than disciplining nurses. Too often I see punishment rather than regulation from the Board; regulation can occur without discipline. And, then what ends up happening is that good nurses either quit nursing out of frustration with the Board's reaction or they unable to obtain work because they are under a Board Order (the assumption is that the nurse must be bad if they are being regulated by the Board and thus, no job). How is the public protected if there are less nurses practicing?

Think that this does not impact you? It can. Once again, I spoke with a nurse who was shocked to be under investigation after years and years of nursing practice. She made an error but it was due to some specific mitigating factors that are unlikely to occur again. Unfortunately, her error will probably result in disciplinary action. If it can happen to a nurse like her, it can happen to you.