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Running head: VIRGINIA BOARD OF NURSING HEARING 1

Virginia Board of Nursing Hearing

Jenna L. Richard

Bon Secours Memorial College of Nursing

I pledge
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Virginia Board of Nursing Hearing

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

probation from a prior investigation.

Application of Course Material

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

safe, quality, and efficient care.

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
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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

board to make these decisions in order to advocate for patients.

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
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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.

Application to Profession of Nursing

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

it, the profession would quickly fall apart.

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
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fighting for their careers and breaking down in tears was hard to watch and I never want to be

put in that situation.


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References

Aboutboardsofnursing.(n.d.).Retrievedfromhttps://www.ncsbn.org/aboutboardsof

nursing.htm

Board of nursing information about hearings. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://www.dhp.virginia.gov/nursing/default.htm

Mikelaites, C. (2016). Module II: Advocacy [Powerpoint slides].

Mikelaites, C. (2016). Module III: Quality improvement policy [Powerpoint slides].

Power,J.(2015,October28).Virginiaboardofnursingoverview:Lawsandregulations,

RN/LPNscopeofpractice,delegationtoULPs,discipline&resources.Retrievedfrom

http://headstartva.org/wpcontent/uploads/2014/09/DeptofHealthProfessionsNursing

ScopeofPracticeHealthInstitute2015.pdf

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