Ok this whole thing with Amanda Trejillo is wearing pretty thin about now. But there is something I agree with.
The AZ BON doesn’t understand social media. As I went back and looked at posts about the whole thing, 90+% of the posts aren’t done by Amanda. They are posts by other people. She is def getting penalized for other’s actions. It show’s a basic misunderstanding of social media by the BON.
What I still don’t agree with is the blind following by the more acticvist nurses on the internet. But I have a different viewpoint than others, that gives me a perspective that others may not have.
I got fired. I got fired for doing something that wasn’t covered in the policies of the department. It didn’t matter that I had done it hundreds of times in other facilities, and even taught some of the Doc’s in our ED how to do the procedure. It didn’t matter that I teach the procedure nationally.
In fact I didn’t get fired for doing the procedure. I got fired because my boss couldn’t trust me to follow procedures in the future. I had looked at a policy, decided it didn’t make sense and went off the reservation. She fired me rightly because she couldn’t trust me. If I was to just present the facts on this specific patient and case, I could paint a case similar to Amanda’s.
So I’ve got a slightly different viewpoint on this than others. One of the problems with our health care system is that ethics and legal don’t always jive. Did the patient need/deserve more education? Most definitily! DId it happen exactly the way that Amanda says it did? I wasn’t there, and I don’t know for sure, but I don’t believe that Amanda is lying in her presentation of the subject. But she’s only telling her side of the story. There may be more inforation that we don’t have.
I’m sorry Amanda, but the big issue in this isn’t you. The big issue is that nursing has pushed a concept of being a patient advocate. Unfortunatly, this isn’t a clear cut, well defined concept. It’s a grey, and open to interpretation. Using this case as an example, even we as nurses can’t agree on what it means.
The voices of support are already dying out. The coperate body of nurses who have blogs, have already tired of it. By making the issue about her, they are putting up a smokescreen that is making it difficult to focus on the real issues.
Well written.
You are right. This is about the bigger issue of being able to be a patient advocate without fear of retaliation. Unfortunately, its likely going to be impossible to clearly define what that means. It’s going to mean different things for different patients. But what it should mean is that a nurse has the ability to “Do the right thing” by her patient.