You have been working as a CNA for a while now, and you are good at your job. You know that there is always the possibility of a mistake happening here or there, but most of the time you do not make any mistakes. However, if you get into trouble with certain things there is no way to escape without losing your license and getting fired from your job. There are many different ways to lose your CNA job and license – we will discuss five easy ones today!
1. Medication errors
Medication errors have the potential to turn into a fatal situation, which is why there are so many math problems in nursing school. You need to master your skill with numbers if you want to survive! If it’s not because of too many medication errors then maybe you’ll be fired and end up at risk for losing your license – better stay on top of that number-crunching lest something bad happen.
2. Drugs addiction
In the past, addiction has cost many people their careers. Nurses are not immune to this and can lose licenses if they relapse or fail a drug test. The board does offer rehabilitation programs for nurses with an alcohol or substance abuse problem that may be making it difficult on them at work but even these do not protect you 100% from being fired over your use of drugs outside of working hours; only time will tell what fate awaits those who get diagnosed as addicts in the future.
If you are guilty of diversion, then your employer can have you locked up for theft. Addiction sneaks up on people before they realize it is happening to them. You may get a prescription for hydrocodone from the doctor and not even know that addiction has set in until some pills go missing at work or when someone catches you taking one out of their pocket without remembering having done so!
It’s tempting once again to take another pill but don’t do this because if caught by an employer or law enforcement officer, there will be consequences you could lose your job AND face criminal charges! I’d never want anyone going through what happened with me where police came to transport me away from my workplace handcuffed like a common thief.
3. Social media
If you decide to take pictures of a patient, be prepared for the consequences. There are cases where nurses post photos or videos on social media without permission and get fired or lose their license. This can violate patient’s privacy and make them feel embarrassed if they’re in an embarrassing position, like sleeping naked or something worse that I don’t want to tell you about! Even if your intention is good like taking a picture so people know what ailments exist out there-still avoid it at all costs because even with consent from the patient.
4. Charting mistake
You know, it’s easy to make mistakes when you’re a nurse. If we don’t write stuff down, then nothing happened! You might think that excluding information is just fine because nobody will ever find out about your mistake… but if they do and can prove it was intentional? Your license could be on the line.
That’s why getting everything written up properly even though sometimes feels like more of a chore than anything else-it means so much to have all those things in writing for future reference or legal purposes!
5. Patient abusing
As a nurse, you should know better that it’s not just physical abuse when hurting your patient. You could be charged with neglect or even something more serious if the person dies and their arm was broken before they passed away which happened in one case I read about where an elderly lady went to the hospital for a procedure but her arm broke during it so she died later on because of this injury.
A arm break turned into a horrible time for the nurse. Rumors got started that he broke a patient’s arm, and since nurses are so tight-knit, word spread like wildfire. Soon enough nobody would hire him because they all believed it was true even though there just wasn’t any evidence to back up rumors of wrongdoing on his behalf.
The best thing you can do for your patients is to always have a friendly, non-hostile tone of voice. If they start cursing at you or saying negative things about the hospital staff and other nurses don’t take it personally; instead let them know that this behavior will not be tolerated by politely informing them why.
Even if their words are harsh because they believe something happened in our care which caused harm we should never retaliate physically like punching back or yelling louder than the patient! The board sees any physical confrontation as justification for an attack on us so please remember to keep your cool no matter what happens when dealing with these people who might seem irrational but really just want to help themselves feel better again!
We hope you enjoyed this article and learned a thing or two about some of the many ways to lose your CNA job. If you have any stories that can help us out, be sure to share them with us!
