Hospitals and other medical facilities have a notable hierarchy. A nurse, particularly one who is new to the profession or to the particular medical facility, may fall far down on it.
Nursing is a profession where serious mistakes can sometimes lead to lawsuits. The suspension or loss of a license to practice or even criminal charges. There may be occasions where those higher up the ladder pass the blame for a mistake they made on to someone further down that ladder.
Nurses may become scapegoats
A nurse may be surprised to find themselves called in front of the licensing board for an error they did not commit. They may be aware there was an error made by someone else, or they might be completely unaware that one was made. Nevertheless, they may worry about convincing the licensing board of this.
It’s also possible that some of those higher up the ladder may band together to push the blame for an incident off onto a nurse. They might do so out of friendship for each other, or because they need to hide their joint culpability.
Perhaps a nurse was partly at fault, but is attributed an unfairly large share of the blame. For example, a nurse is exhausted after covering extra shifts because of the facility’s failure to provide adequate staffing. The nurse then makes a mistake which it is unlikely they would have made had they got adequate rest rather than being pressured to work back-to-back shifts. The management does all it can to deflect attention away from the fact they cut staffing to increase profits.
Maybe a recently qualified nurse makes an error while carrying out a duty that nurses of their experience level are not normally expected to do without supervision. The person who should have been supervising them did not, because they wanted to leave early. They told the nurse that it was simple, and they would be fine doing it on their own.
Nurses who feel they are being unfairly blamed for an incident should make sure to learn more about their options for defending their license and reputation.
