The Texas Nurse Association has been tracking this case closely and is in attendance at the trial. TNA has also set up a legal defense fund and provided letters in support of the nurses’ actions. Here is their account of the daily ongoings , quoted from texasnurse.org,
Update: Wednesday, February 10
Andrews Courthouse – On [...]
The trial began on February 8, 2010 with jury selection. Prior to the trial, one of the two nurses, Vicki Galle, originally indicted was dismissed from the case. Anne Mitchell’s trial involves felony charges for mis-using private, patient files to harass the County hospital’s doctor. On February 9, 2010, testimony began in the trial. The [...]
I have heard from another nurse who is having a difficult time obtaining a job while under a Board Order. This is an ongoing problem especially in this economy. Some employers are refusing to hire a nurse no matter what the basis for the Order. Most nurses cannot afford to fight an Order [...]
The Board reports online that they have some new options to help nurses obtain information needed from the Board: 1) the ability to track application status online, so that applicants can track what the Board has received and what is still required and 2)a “Live Help” function that allows individuals to chat online [...]
I just received the Texas Board of Nursing’s brochure for their upcoming Nursing Jurisprudence course. It looks like instead of having a course in August in Austin (which is what has happened the past few years), the Board is having the course for central Texas in San Antonio on February 25 or February 26, 2010. [...]
Nurses that are on Board Orders for monitoring due to substance abuse or on a Board Order sending the nurse to TPAPN must be extremely careful with complying with their Board Order and with what they ingest because of the following section of the Nurse Practice Act (taken from the Board’s website at www.bon.state.tx.us). There [...]
The Texas Board of Nursing’s E&D Committee is discussing the following issues today:
1. Discussion and review of the Board¿s policies and rules relating to physical and psychological evaluations for mental impairment, physical impairment, and/or chemical dependency/abuse of drugs or alcohol, including review and discussion of the Occupations Code §301.4521; 22 Tex. Admin. Code §§213.20, [...]
The Texas Nursing Board has posted new prescription rules for APRNs and the deadline to comment on the rules in 12.27.09 (scroll down to find the Nursing Board rule). The new rules have some “clean-up” language including changing APN to APRN; however, there are significant changes that require APRNs to review these rules. [...]
Although there is still one attorney position still posted to be filled at the Texas Board of Nursing, the Board staff has reported that since they are at full staff they are going to move very quickly on violations of Board monitoring orders for substance abuse or for violation of TPAPN orders. Nurses under such [...]
Here is a new site to have a look at www.themusern.com
The site is run by Lynda Cook Sawyer. She describes herself as “a wife, mother, Registered Nurse, nursing educator, nursing leader, speaker and author. She has spent 25 years working as an RN in acute care facilities and thinks of nurses as the [...]