Sunday, May 08, 2011

airing dirty laundry

Here's something I have never seen before: I was perusing the local Sunday paper and under a section entitled Whistleblower there was an article about nurses who have had their licenses suspended or revoked. Periodically I have seen this for doctors, but not for nurses.

Four of the nurses who apparently were the worst of the worst had little paragraphs telling about what they did mostly involving drug use. The others just had their names and towns listed.

Of course, like you would, I looked to see if I knew anybody. Didn't thank goodness. I don't know this seems kind of cruel to me. I suppose it is all public record. Is it necessary to drag it into the public? If one profession is going to have their dirty laundry aired, then what about dentists, vets, etc.? Shouldn't they all be in the paper.

Maybe this is as a result of a couple of highly publicized cases involving nurses and drugs. Who knows. Your thoughts?

2 comments:

  1. They usually publish the disciplinary actions in the trib after the Board of Medical Practice meets. I've seen one my my fellow RTs in it for losing his license. There are occasionally MDs listed too.... interesting reading.

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  2. In my state, there is a website that lists all licenses that have been disciplined, suspended or have pending action. There is a link that goes through every sordid detail the offender did. For nurses, it's mostly drugs, for MD/DO's there is a lot of wrong site surgery, DUI's, and other offenses. It is updated on a daily basis. I've seen a lot of nurses I know on the site.

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