Leaving your nursing assignment while on duty without notification to the present Registered Nurse is a violation. This may result in a great risk of harm to patients. It is also considered negligence of duty. An RN having such a violation will be summoned by the Board and will be sanctioned. Before facing the Board, an RN should come prepared by having a nurse attorney for the defense. An example of such a violation happened to an RN at Round Rock, Texas.
At the time of the incident, the RN was employed as a Registered Nurse at a hospital in Round Rock, Texas, and had been in that position for three (3) years and four (4) months.
It was on or about January 18, 2020, that the RN left his nursing assignment without ensuring another Registered Nurse was available on the unit before he left. Subsequently, the patient experienced a fall, and the staff was left unable to locate another Registered Nurse to attend to the emergent situation. The RN’s conduct exposed patients unnecessarily to risk of harm in that leaving the nursing assignment without ensuring another Registered Nurse was present could have resulted in the patients not getting the care needed.
In response to the incident, the RN explains that he received a call from his second shift unit advising him to give a report to Psychiatric Nursing Assistant (PNA) in order to leave on time for his next shift. The RN states that it is his understanding that a nurse cannot relinquish their charge until the report is given to the relieving nurse and the nurse has accepted the floor; therefore, he states that he did not follow this advice and chose to give a report to the oncoming shift and wait for his relief to arrive. He states that his relief arrived thirty (30) minutes late and he decided to give her report outside so that he could get to his next unit quickly. He also states that he told the PNA’s in his vicinity that he was leaving, and as he was exiting they made a deliberate effort to address the Spec and LVN who were down the hall. He states that before he left the unit, the patient was observed dancing and laughing in no apparent distress outside of the nurses’ station. And states that he offered to escort the oncoming RN to the unit, but she declined. And that there is nothing that he did or did not do that would have impacted the outcome of this patient. The RN states that he did step off the floor but he did so leaving a licensed individual on the unit. He then states that he had no reason to believe or suspect that the patient was in any danger, and he used his best judgment in an effort to safely transition between his current assignment and his next assignment.
As a conclusion to the behavior and actions made by the RN, the Board has come to the decision that the RN shall be subjected to discipline. The RN failed to hire a nurse attorney to fully defend her case and had led to this decision of the Board. A nurse attorney knows how to handle any nurse cases. So you must take into consideration hiring a nurse attorney.
Do you have questions about the Texas Board of Nursing disciplinary process, you may contact The Law Office of RN License Attorney Yong J. An for a confidential consultation by calling or texting 24/7 at (832) 428-5679 and ask for attorney Yong.