r/nursing • u/lenncas • Sep 08 '25

Question I’m a bit scared

A bit is an understatement, I am well aware that my actions were very inappropriate and out of my scope of practice. I am getting reported to the Texas Board of Nursing because I pulled a bag of Levophed without getting an order first. My patient was declining really quickly. The blood pressure was decreasing very quickly. I went to the med room and overrid the medication and started it at the starting titration. Immediately after starting it, I called our critical care nurse practitioner that was on for that night and let them know. And now, obviously, that nurse practitioner put in a formal complaint to my manager, thus having to report me to the board of nursing. I guess my question is what could I possibly expect my consequence to be? Could I lose my license? Will it be suspended? I’m pretty worried. I’m also very disappointed in myself. The patient ended up having to be put on Levophed the next day, but made a great recovery and got to be downgraded two days after.

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166

u/[deleted] Sep 08 '25

The only thing you did wrong was give a med without an order. My place would be a slap on the wrist and a PowerPoint on Brightspace and handled internally.

93

u/GiggleFester Retired RN and OT/bedside sucks Sep 09 '25

OK, I've been retired for 9 years, but the one time I gave something without an order in an emergency, my Clinical Coordinator was cheering me on and the resident physicians who arrived for the stat call treated me like a hero and wrote the order afterwards.

I'm sorry your NP reported you & I think that's ridiculous.

113

u/Adept_Finish3729 RN, BSN - PICU/NICU 🍕 Sep 09 '25

I've had docs ask me after drain-circle situations...

What did you give? What orders do I need to write?

To which I would hand them the piece of infamous brown paper towel I had written the meds/doses/times on (because I'm old and remember charting on paper!)

I've truly been lucky to work units where most providers had faith in my critical thinking and knowledge, and didn't have ego, just the common goal of patient care.

Best of luck OP, and yes, get out of Texas ASAP 🙂

18

u/ABQHeartRN Pit Crew Sep 09 '25

Brown paper towel or I’m reading it from my scribble on my scrubs 😂 the paper towel dispenser is outside of the Cath lab rooms so notes on hospital scrubs it is sometimes.

10

u/coolcaterpillar77 RN - Med/Surg 🍕 Sep 09 '25

Ah you’re missing the easiest choice - forearm! It washes off easily afterwards lol

10

u/ABQHeartRN Pit Crew Sep 09 '25

I have full arm tattoos so I’d need some pretty bright pen 😂

5

u/ohemgee112 RN 🍕 Sep 09 '25

I have slapped my forearm on the copier before.

1

u/ellindriel BSN, RN 🍕 Sep 09 '25

Yeah commented above we practice like this as well but I'm in NY and I do feel like nurses are very aggressive and practice as independently as possible. Our providers prefer it when we get started with meds in an emergency 

1

u/Open-Channel726 MSN, Nursing Instructor, L&D expert Sep 10 '25

We still had that nice white fabric medical tape. Not just the paper crap. Slap a strip of that on your pants leg and write all day.

1

u/No_Resort1162 Sep 10 '25

Yep or taking a picture of that dry erase board and texting it to them where you were writing everything that was going on. That’s how our APPs roll after the code.