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Archive for the ‘Nursing Jobs’ Category

Michael Jackson's Nurse

The L.A. County Coroner’s office wants the files that Michael Jackson’s former nurse has. Cherilyn Lee is the nurse who claims Michael Jackson kept asking her how to obtain the powerful anesthesia, Propofol. She denies ever giving him this drug and warned him against ever taking it.

According to TMZ Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter just left nurse Cherilyn Lee’s office … he walked out with Jackson’s medical records.

When Lee was asked about Jackson’s use of the drug Propofol — she says he asked her for it but she never gave it to him.

Winter retrieved files from Dr. Arnold Klein last week.

TMZ also reports, Winter has left the building with medical records. He said Lee was cooperative and is not under investigation. We spoke with Lee after Winter left — she says she thought she’d convinced Jackson not to take Diprivan, he was feeling good and a great father figure.

This video is from Politico.com where Obama uses nurses to push his health reform agenda.

Looks like the terminator means business. According to the LA Times Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger replaced most members of the state Board of Registered Nursing on Monday, citing the unacceptable time it takes to discipline nurses accused of egregious misconduct.

He fired three of six sitting board members — including President Susanne Phillips — in two-paragraph letters curtly thanking them for their service. Another member resigned Sunday. Late Monday, the governor’s administration released a list of replacements.

The shake-up came a day after The Times and the nonprofit news organization ProPublica published an investigation finding that it takes the board, which oversees 350,000 licensees, an average of three years and five months to investigate and close complaints against nurses.

During that time, nurses accused of wrongdoing are free to practice — often with spotless records — and move from hospital to hospital. Potential employers are unaware of the risks, and patients have been harmed as a result.

Reporters found nurses who continued to work unrestricted for years despite documented histories of incompetence, violence, criminal convictions and drug theft or abuse. In dozens of cases, nurses maintained clean records in California even though they had been suspended or fired by employers, disciplined by another California licensing board or restricted from practice by other states.

Read Full Story Here

July 8th 2009 – Cherilyn Lee, a registered nurse who had worked for Michael Jackson, is interviewed by Greta Van Susteren from Fox News On The Record. This is a complete interview that shows footage that was not aired. In the interview the nurse discusses how she repeatedly rejected his demands for the potent anesthetic Diprivan, also known as Propofol.

Michael Jackson’s Nurse – Part I

Michael Jackson’s Nurse – Part II

Michael Jackson’s Nurse – Part III

Find nursing jobs and travel nursing information at Nurse Forum.

According to the latest figures from UK nursing regulator, NMC, there has been an 18% increase in complaints made against nurses and midwives.

An NMC report reveals that the regulator received 1,759 complaints judged to be suitable for further investigation in 2008-2009, an increase of over 18% compared to the 1,487 in 2007-2008.

This represents the highest number of allegations received by the UK’s largest health professional regulator since 2005, according to the NMC

Nearly 15% of complaints related to charges of dishonesty including theft, false claims to registration with the NMC and sleeping while on duty.

Ian Todd, director of fitness to practise at the NMC, said ‘We have no objective evidence to explain why the number of complaints has increased. However, members of the public have increasing expectations of the standards of care they should receive and we live in a consumer society in which people are more willing to complain when they have received poor care.’

Visit Nurses Forum for information about nursing jobs and travel nursing.

According to The U.S. Department of Labor’s March 2008 Employment Summary reports, employment in the health care sector continues to grow, adding 360,000 jobs during the past 12 months. The Labor Department estimates employment of registered nurses will grow 23 percent from 2006 to 2016 and the country will need 500,000 new RNs by 2016.

“I’ve been a nurse since 1969 and have experienced different economic up and down turns,” said Linda Norman, DSN, RN, FAAN, senior associate dean for academics at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing in Nashville, Tennessee. “There has always been a sustained need for nurses and a shortage of nurses.”

“Nursing not only is a recession-proof profession but it is one that has multiple opportunities,” Norman added. “The value of nursing is being appreciated throughout the health care industry.”

“The number of nurses who graduated has gone up during the last 40 years, but, the interesting piece is the demand for nurses also has increased,” Norman said. “Nursing programs have had difficulty keeping up with the demand.”

Pat Witzel, RN and chief nursing officer at Strong Memorial Hospital at the University of Rochester Medical Center located in New York, stated, “Nursing is not generally affected by the economy. People becoming ill or needing health care services is not dependent on what happens economically.”

The average age of a nurse  is almost 50 years with many possibly retiring soon.

“The workforce will be consistently losing nurses during the next five, 10, 15 years, and those nurses will need to be replaced,” said Hila Richardson, director of the undergraduate, continuing education and community health programs at New York University (NYU) College of Nursing.

Nursing jobs  and travel nursing  will always be in demand because people will always need medical care, however schools are just not producing enough nurses.

June 19th, 2009 New York Daily News – Two doctors and two nurses are facing possible criminal charges for covering up the death-by-neglect of patient Esmin Green last year in the psychiatric ward at Kings County Hospital, the Daily News has learned.

Watch surveiilance video of neglected dead woman

The city Department of Investigation will release a report today of its probe of misconduct by medical personnel after a shocking surveillance tape documenting Green’s death – one year ago today – revealed major inconsistencies with reports documenting her care in the emergency room.

“Discrepancies were uncovered that called into question the acuracy of the medical records created by certain Kings County Hospital doctors,” according to the report obtained by The News.

“DOI’s investigation further disclosed that the failures docmented in Ms. Green’s ill fated stay at the facility in all likelihood were not aberrations, but rather the result of systemic weaknesses in the emergency room’s operating procedures…”

The findings of fabricated records and false testimony include:

*A nurse identified only as Gonzalo admitted that after Green was pronounced dead, she made three false entries in the patient’s progress notes to make it appear that Green had appeared fine in the prior 45 minutes while under the nurse’s care.

In fact, Green was out cold on the emergency room floor for one hour, ignored by staffers and security as she lay face-down on the floor.

“Nurse Gonzalo who feared she would lose her job, admitted to DOI that she fabricated portions of the entries in Ms. Green’s progress noptes in order to mislead,” the report states.

*Nursing Aide Royal Easton made false entries in an observation sheet indicating she observed Green asleep. When questioned by investigators, Easton invoked her 5th Ammendment right against self-incrimination.

*The surveillance tape showed Dr. Rashed Abedin and Dr. Dimitru Magardician made no attempt to examine Green after she was brought into the emergency room for observation as they asserted in a medical records. Both doctors also invoked the 5th Ammendment when questioned.

The 18-page report will be forwarded to Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes “for whatever action they deem appropriate.”

Lawyer Sanford Rubenstein who represents Green’s children in a suit against the city said: “I have the utmost confidence in Charles Hynes, the Brooklyn D.A., that based on the evidence in this report he will take appropriate action against all parties.”

Green’s daughter Tecia Harrison, recently settled the suit for $2 million, said the DOI report was a long time coming.

“Those who are guilty should be prosecuted and sent to jail,” Harrison said today. “That’s more important than the settlement.”

The American Medical Association (AMA) said  it opposes a proposal by President Obama to create a public health insurance plan as part of a massive effort to reform the health care industry.

Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican and ranking member of the Finance Committee is urging Mr. Obama to support taxing employer health benefits to pay for reform, an idea which President Obama denounced Sen. John McCain for proposing during the presidential debates.

“It looks like he’s looking at doing similar to what McCain wanted to do, and I think for the benefit of making this bipartisan, presidential leadership in this area would be very good based upon the tune of the last campaign,” said Sen. Grassley.

Sen. Christopher J. Dodd on the other hand while appearing Sen. Grassley on “Fox News Sunday” that he’s against taxing the benefits.

“I mean, the idea that you’re going to have people out there that are struggling to make ends meet today, they’re falling further and further behind with wages, people losing jobs, losing homes – to turn around and say, ‘You basically have no change in your health care plan, and by the way, we’re going to tax you now for those benefits’ – we can actually pay for this with proposals Mr. Obama has made”, he said.

Obama plans to pitch the AMA’s annual meeting in Chicago. President Obama is expected to walk through the case for health care reform, including how medicine is delivered and how efficiency could be improved, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters.

The following article was reported today by the Associated Press (AP)

MADISON, Wis. – A nurse was called out of surgery so a manager could tell her she was being laid off. Dean Health said the surgery was minor and the patient wasn’t affected, but the manager who summoned the nurse from surgery violated medical protocol. Dean Health spokesman Paul Pitas said the incident happened at Dean’s West Clinic in Madison on Wednesday or Thursday.

Pitas said there was a period of time in which a nurse wasn’t present during the procedure. He said while there were other clinical staff present, the absence of a nurse is a violation of patient care procedures.

The Madison-based health care provider announced Wednesday that it planned to “immediately” lay off 90 employees.

Pitas declined to name the employees involved or what type of surgery the nurse was attending when she was called away.

Gabe Westheimer who became a registered nurse in January, has been unable to find a nursing job in his preferred area, an emergency room nurse. Nursing jobs are not as abundant as they were before the economic downturn.

His wife, Kate, is a doctoral student with a National Institutes of Health fellowship has a limited income, and two more years of schooling left. Gabe abd his wife had budgeted for him to be without a job until April, but he’s up against the deadline.

“We budgeted for us to get that income now, but I’m still looking,” he said. “We sure would love not to draw on savings.”

More experienced nurses who might have chosen to retire are staying, and those who worked part time have moved to full time, squeezing out new graduates.

Gabe feels that like the country, he and his wife are building their foundation now, and although their finances, and the national economy, might be gloomy, things will improve soon.

“I have no worries about our long term prospects,” he said. “I trust that sooner rather than later I will land a job in the field I want to work in.”