The Texas Board of Nursing is known to be very strict when it comes to all actions of nurses, which is why a nurse attorney is needed when attending hearings before the Board. The Texas Board of Nursing does not allow those who wish to exceed the scope of their practice as an RN or LVN. A certain LVN in Brownwood could’ve done this but failed to hire a good nurse attorney.
At the time of the incident, the LVN was employed in a hospital in Brownwood and had been working in the facility for two years already.
On or about March 27, 2018, the LVN failed to timely reassess the patient when the aforementioned patient had complaints of diaphoresis, shortness of breath, weakness, and anxiety at 8 pm. The RRT was called at 11:30 pm and the physician ordered a ventilation-perfusion and computerized tomography scan.
Additionally, the LVN failed to inform the telemetry tech that the patient was leaving the unit at 1:20 am for the ordered scans in radiology. Subsequently, the patient coded while in radiology, and the code team responded to the patient’s room instead of to radiology. Then the code was announced to radiology, the patient was resuscitated, and transferred to the ICU.
The LVN’s conduct was likely to injure the patient from unrecognized clinical changes and delayed medical interventions.
The Texas Board of Nursing took action to the case, summoning the LVN to defend against the accusation. During the hearing, the LVN states that the floor was unusually busy, she had five (5) other patients, and there was no help from other staff, so she was unable to document in detail in the patient’s chart. She explains that all vital signs (VS), symptoms and behaviors pointed towards this patient is clinically stable, and not in risk of undergoing immediate heart-related complications, and she only displayed mild sweating which started earlier in the day, and very minor anxiety.
The LVN relates that she checked her VS every 30-45 minutes. She explains that upon noticing that she was sweating more, the physician and RRT were called, the patient appeared okay, so they left. The LVN states that a scan was ordered to rule out a pulmonary embolism. The LVN indicates that around the time the patient was being transferred to nuclear imaging, she was overwhelmed, and informing the monitor tech that the patient was being transferred slipped her mind.
The Texas Board of Nursing has full jurisdiction over all cases that may affect the LVN license. The strictness of the Board also ensures that nurses will only commit to the duties they are assigned to in order to guarantee accurate and excellent performance in all hospitals throughout the state of Texas.
As a result, the Texas Board of Nursing decided to sentence her LVN license to disciplinary action to ensure that she will never commit such acts again.
The case would have yielded a different result if the LVN was able to hire a nurse attorney. So if you also have the same cases or concerns, it’s best to contact Nurse Attorney Yong J. An for further details. You may contact him at (832) 428-5679 to get a schedule for a confidential consultation.