Being accused of abandoning a patient can be serious for a practicing nurse. If the accusation is passed on to the California Board of Registered Nursing (BRN) and is then substantiated, you could face disciplinary action.
That does not mean you have to say yes to continuing to care for every patient. Sometimes you are well within your right to say no. The key to whether an accusation is legally justified or not is twofold.
1. Did you formally agree to care for that patient?
Merely being in the same building or vicinity as a patient does not establish a nurse-patient relationship. If an accusation of patient abandonment is made, the BRN should look at whether you formally accepted entering into a nurse-patient relationship. For example, did you receive a verbal shift report or accept the keys to the unit from someone handing responsibility over to you? Alternatively, did you begin to assess or treat the patient?
2. Did you stop without handing over responsibility or without giving sufficient notice?
If you walk out mid-shift without saying a word to anyone, then patient abandonment might well be deemed to have occurred. If, however, you informed your supervisor that you needed to leave at 5:00 p.m. on the dot, with plenty of notice, then the accusation against you would be less likely to stand up. Equally, if you performed a verbal or written handover to another staff member, this too would make the accusation against you less likely to be valid.
Both things should be true for the BRN to initiate disciplinary action against you. Nevertheless, some employers may accuse you of abandonment when only one or even none of those two things is true. They might use the threat of reporting you to the BRN for patient abandonment to push you to stay longer or take on more work.
Experienced legal guidance can help you stand up to such actions and protect your nursing license if you’re facing an accusation of patient abandonment or other wrongdoing.
