Leaving your nursing assignment while on duty without notification is a violation. This may result in great 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 Pasadena, Texas.
At the time of the incident, an RN was employed as a Registered Nurse at a hospital in Pasadena, Texas, and had been in that position for two (2) years and nine (9) months.
On or about June 4, 2018, the RN left his nursing assignment for approximately one (1) hour and fifty-one minutes without notifying the appropriate personnel. As a result, Respondent was thus unavailable for the critical care transport of one of his patients to another hospital, despite Respondent having prior knowledge of the transport. The RN did not return to the Intensive Care Unit until his shift supervisor called the RN’s cell phone. Subsequently, security video revealed that the RN left the building at 20:16 and returned at 22:07. The RN’s conduct exposed the patient unnecessarily to risk of harm in that leaving the nursing assignment could have resulted in the patient not getting the care needed.
As a response to the RN states that after speaking with the Charge Nurse and learning that he had not heard back from either the transport team or the House Supervisor, he decided to take his lunch earlier than he normally would as it was very common to receive an admission soon after a transfer or discharge. The RN states that he reported the pertinent information to his lunch buddy who agreed to watch his patients while he was off the unit. He states that he ordered his dinner from a nearby restaurant; however when he arrived they had not received his order so he had to re-order and wait for them to complete it. He also states that he returned to the hospital as quickly as he could, assisted in completing the transfer, and apologized to the charge nurse and to the nurse who watched his patients that his break was longer than the usual 30 minutes.
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.
Do you have questions about the Texas Board of Nursing disciplinary process? 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 a nurse attorney.