Goyette & Associates attorneys are taking in a minimum of 2 new cases per week from nurses who have had an accusation filed against them with the Department of Consumer Affairs, BRN. These nurses are in various stages of the BRN’s process. Some are lucky enough to already be RN Guardian members, which means they just have to pick up the phone, call Jennifer and she takes it from there, assigning an attorney and acting as a liaison. Other nurses call us because they’ve received the dreaded notification from the BRN and they are being asked to speak with a BRN investigator. It’s always best for us to get involved at this point. We can walk the RN through it and give them guidance as they go through the investigation process, to mitigate mistakes on their part that could cause problems for them later if they go to hearing.
Often that is not the case. Sometimes a nurse will call after he or she has already met with the investigator and the BRN has decided that they are going to impose a discipline, up to and including revocation of the RN’s license for ever. There is still time for G&A attorneys to step in at this point and attend the BRN hearing as the nurse’s counsel. To date, we are very proud of our 98% success, rate.
In order to help nurses before the investigation becomes this severe and before an entire way of life is in jeopardy, we’ve worked with RN Guardian to develop a Forum where nurses can share their stories and we can respond with some of our own: https://rnguardian.wordpress.com/ . We want nurses to find us before it is too late. We want them to know that if a complaint is made to the BRN, there is a chance that it will turn into an investigation. And if the investigation doesn’t go well, there is a little less than 50/50 odds that that nurse is going to keep her license. Those are not good odds. Everyone makes mistakes, even the best nurses and that doesn’t necessarily mean they should lose their entire career and way of life as a result. We’ll offer tips on how to avoid a complaint in the first place, the steps to take to take if the BRN gets wind of it and if needed, we can make a recommendation for a few good attorneys if it goes that far!
If you know any nurses, send them to the RNG Forum. Let them know that your favorite Law Firm is going to be contributing to it on a regular basis. We would love to hear what the nursing community has to say.