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Jenna L. Richard
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VIRGINIA BOARD OF NURSING HEARING 2
The Virginia Board of Nursing (VBON) is responsible for licensing health care providers
and ensuring that those licensed professionals comply with the standards of practice throughout
their career. The Virginia Board of Nursing holds informal hearings where registered nurses in
question sit in front of a panel of four to five board members who will decide whether the case
will move forward to the formal hearing or be dropped. Two hearings were observed, one case
regarding the abuse of narcotics by a Registered Nurse, and the other involving a Registered
Nurse who had disobeyed Virginia Board of Nursing orders and regulations regarding her
During the meeting, multiple alignments with the course material of the Professional
Role Development course at Bon Secours Memorial College of Nursing were observed. One aim
of the National Strategy for Quality Improvement in Heath Care is to improve the quality,
safety, efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare for all Americans (Mikelaites, 2016). The
Virginia Board of Nurses work to make sure that this goal is carried out in nursing practice.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of nurses who do not follow the standards set in place by the board
and by doing so they are putting their patients at risk. By investigating cases of negligence and
malpractice, the board is ensuring that the licensed nurses in Virginia are providing patients with
One module taught in Professional Role Development was about advocacy in the heath
care setting. In this module, policy was defined as a mixture of laws, regulations,
interpretations, court decisions, and other information relevant to the policy content (Mikelaites,
2016). This is relevant because the main purpose of these informal hearings is to make sure that
VIRGINIA BOARD OF NURSING HEARING 3
health care professionals, in this case Registered Nurses, are following the policies set in place
by both their workplace and the board itself. In the first case where the nurse was abusing
narcotics in the workplace where she was also providing care for patients, she was breaking
many policies. The Virginia Board of Nursing had her enroll in the Health Practitioners Monitor
Program (HPMP) to ensure that she stayed clean from narcotics and other drugs. The nurse failed
to comply when she was found positive for Xanax and Hydromorphone. This particular nurse
blamed her back injury and her Mothers passing for her violations, but the board ultimately
decided that she was not fit to practice as a Registered Nurse any longer. It is the duty of the
Also in the advocacy module, the topic of nursing shortages was discussed. It obviously
takes a lot of time and hard work to become a Registered Nurse, and staffing is a major concern
in the field of nursing. The Virginia Board of Nursing is not trying to just take licenses left and
right, which is why these hearings take place and the process is so long for nurses in question.
The board is determined to look into every detail of each case to determine whether the nurse
should lose his or her license, be put on probation or suspension, or the case should be dropped.
This is a great responsibility because it is important that the nurses practicing in Virginia are
competent and practicing safely. When the board puts a nurse on probation, they are giving them
a second chance to practice. This means a lot of hard work for the nurse with requirements such
as Alcoholics Anonymous classes several times a week, monitoring programs, self assessments,
performance assessments, drug tests, and whatever else the board feels necessary to be sure that
the nurse makes changes in his or her life so that they can return to work as a Registered Nurse.
If they comply with all of the requirements of probation, they will go in front of the board again
with the possibility of getting their license back, probably with some regulations. For example, if
VIRGINIA BOARD OF NURSING HEARING 4
the nurse abused narcotics, that nurse will most likely never be able to work in a setting where
narcotics are readily available. By allowing nurses who deserve it a second chance, they are not
losing as many nurses as they would by just taking licenses from each nurse under investigation.
The Virginia Board of Nursing and their meeting have major impacts to the profession of
nursing. The Virginia Board of Nursing meets to collaborate on recent issues that have arisen in
nursing practice and how they can be solved and prevented. The board makes sure that the
Registered Nurses in Virginia are practicing competently and safely in order to provide patients
with the best care possible and allow for better outcomes. Without the board, there would be little
regulation over nursing practice and there would be no repercussions for negligence and
malpractice. The Virginia Board of Nursing truly is the backbone of nursing practice and without
Refection
I was grateful to be able to attend this meeting of the Virginia Board of Nursing because I
think that it is very important for us as future nurses to see how the board is run and how they
make crucial decisions regarding nursing practice. I think that all nurses or nursing students
should attend one of these meetings because we learn about the board and hear about it all the
time, but to see them in person and see how they work reinforces just how important they really
are to our profession. I learned to always be sure of the policies in place where I work and
standards set in place by the board because the repercussions of failing to follow those policies
can be detrimental to ones career. Though the cases we observed mainly had to do with drug
abuse, there are many other ways that a nurse can be put under investigation. Seeing these nurses
VIRGINIA BOARD OF NURSING HEARING 5
fighting for their careers and breaking down in tears was hard to watch and I never want to be
References
Aboutboardsofnursing.(n.d.).Retrievedfromhttps://www.ncsbn.org/aboutboardsof
nursing.htm
https://www.dhp.virginia.gov/nursing/default.htm
Power,J.(2015,October28).Virginiaboardofnursingoverview:Lawsandregulations,
RN/LPNscopeofpractice,delegationtoULPs,discipline&resources.Retrievedfrom
http://headstartva.org/wpcontent/uploads/2014/09/DeptofHealthProfessionsNursing
ScopeofPracticeHealthInstitute2015.pdf