Accusations at work are one of the cases that a nurse attorney in Corpus Christi can resolve. These professionals can guarantee their clients that any false accusations over them can be denied over the Texas Board of Nursing once you hire them for assistance. Sadly, the following RN failed to do so.
On or about February 26, 2014, through April 5, 2016, while employed as a Family Nurse Practitioner in a medical facility in Corpus Christi, the RN exceeded her scope of practice as a Family Nurse Practitioner by treating psychiatric patients, though she was not licensed as a Psychiatric Mental Health Practitioner at that time.
Additionally, the RN’s practice fell below the minimum standards of nursing practice in that she engaged in non-therapeutic prescribing practices. Further, she failed to completely/accurately document collaboration with a delegating/collaborating physician in the patients’ medical records and failed to completely/accurately document more thorough assessments in the patients’ medical files.
In response to the incident, the RN states that during the time period at issue, she was providing care and treatment for exclusively psychiatric patients working under the supervision of a psychiatrist. She states that she had received considerable training in the area of psychiatry and did not perform the initial assessment nor diagnose patients. This was done by her supervising psychiatrist. Her role was performing monthly follow up visits for stable patients that had already been seen by the psychiatrist with a plan of care and initial medications instituted by him.
The RN states that she was closely supervised in the office of the psychiatrist and that her prescriptions for patients were appropriate and therapeutic. She states that any patients on controlled substances were seen at least monthly and evaluated. She states that she leads the way in instituting the use of controlled substance contracts and lab monitoring of clinic patients, that she was responsible for instituting the performance of random drug screens to check for compliance and abuse of drugs, as well as instituting the use of the prescription monitoring program to ensure that the patients were only receiving controlled medications through the psychiatrist’s office.
The RN feels that for a multitude of reasons, it was reasonable for her to believe that she was within her scope of practice to care for this patient population as a Family Nurse Practitioner. However, she respects the authority of this Board and prior to the entry of this Order, began and graduated from a post-graduate certificate program in 2018 for a Psychiatric/Mental Health Nurse Practitioner. With that additional training, she recognizes that she is more qualified to provide comprehensive and careful care to this population of patients about whose well-being she is passionate about.
The Board of Texas has full jurisdiction over all cases regarding RNs and LVNs who committed any forms of offenses. They are also the ones holding decisions whether the RN or LVN’s license has to be suspended, revoked, or disciplined. Therefore, the Board decided to summon the RN for a hearing to defend against the complaint filed to her – this is the part where a nurse attorney should be hired.
Because the RN failed to provide a nurse attorney to defend her case, the Texas Board of Nursing then considered the evidence given to them and sentenced the RN and her license into disciplinary proceedings. She could have hired a nurse attorney to assist her in the case. To contact one, you may dial Nurse Attorney Yong J. An at (832) 428-5679 to schedule a private consultation.