Can a DUI affect your nursing license? Disclaimer, as in all my other blogs, this is a general discussion. This is not state specific. Every state has their own rules and regulations as far as when and how to report. So, this is just going to be a general discussion of, if you get a DUI, these are the things you need to think about that may affect your nursing license. First, you do need to identify whether your board has a reporting requirement. For instance, here in Arizona, our nurses have to report it when they’re charged, not even when they’re convicted. A charge is, for the most part, when you get a DUI and you get a ticket with an arraignment date, that’s considered a charge.
Sometimes, they’ll wait to charge you if they’re waiting on a blood test or something like that. But when you are charged, it just means, when they decided to move forward with whatever the violations were. A conviction is when you’re guilty or you sign a plea agreement or a pretrial diversion program or at least most boards consider a pretrial diversion program, conviction. Like an end to whatever the criminal conduct was, that isn’t a complete dismissal. For the most part, those need to be reported. Now, when they need to be reported varies from state to state. Some require it upon renewal, some require it upon conviction then as I said before here it’s when they’re charged, regardless of whether they’re ultimately convicted or not. That’s the first thing you need to identify.
Alright, when do I need to report it? If I need to report it, then how do I need to report it? For the most part, it needs to be in writing. And I would not submit a big, long story about all the details like I went out to dinner with Sally, and we had this many drinks. That is not going to help you. You need to stick to the facts. I was charged with this on this date, my arraignment date is this, I’ll supplement in the future with more information. Or I was convicted of this on this date, this is what I’ve done. And leave it at that. You don’t want to give them any more information than you must. And the basic requirement is that you simply let them put them on notice of what happened criminally, but it doesn’t mean you need to give every single detail about what happened. Other blogs of interest include:
Some broad thoughts of substance abuse and DUI: the biggest concern of any board of nursing is that if you do get a DUI is that you have substance abuse issue. The stated purpose of nearly every board of nursing is not to protect the nurses, it’s to protect the public. And so, they don’t want a nurse who has substance abuse issues providing patient care. Now, just because you have one DUI doesn’t mean that you have substance abuse issues, but it could be that you do. Let me say this delicately. I speak to people all the time who have what I would consider habitual drinking problems. And they think it’s completely fine. Like if you have a six-pack every night or a bottle of wine every night, the board of nursing is going to consider that a substance abuse problem.
If you just went out, went to dinner, had a few drinks with friends, you drink occasionally, socially a couple of times a month, you don’t drink too much intoxication, that’s just normal alcohol consumption. That’s not a substance abuse problem, but the board is going to think no matter what, they’re going to start at, this person is an alcoholic and then work their way down. So, if it’s just your first-time regular DUI, you had a relatively low BAC, most boards of nursing aren’t going to formally discipline a nurse for something like that. If it’s a third DUI and you had a super extreme BAC level, here in Arizona, that’s above 0.2, then obviously the board is going to be concerned. And what they would do here is they would have the nurse undergo a substance abuse evaluation with the psychologist, and then that psychologist would write recommendations to the board.
And then the board would incorporate those recommendations into probation if they thought that they had substance abuse issues. It’s very unlikely that a nurse with a low-level DUI is going to lose their nursing license. I mean, it’s extremely rare. There must be more underlying things to end up with that result. But, if you have habitual problems, a criminal problem with alcohol or drugs, then yes, that could lead to a board deciding, we don’t want this person to provide care anymore. Now, they’re almost always going to give the nurse at least the option of going on probation or entering confidential monitoring program. Most states call it an alternative to discipline or something like that. A worst-case scenario, at least at the beginning, you’d have the option of doing that.
Where most nurses get in trouble who have continued problems with alcohol is maybe they’re in the confidential monitoring program, they have a positive drug screen for alcohol, they get kicked out of that program, then they get put on formal disciplinary probation. The same thing happens, then they get their license suspended. And then if you continue to violate the terms of the probation, it could end up in revocation. If you’ve had one DUI as a nurse, it’s not going to end your career. It’s most likely not even going to prohibit you from getting jobs in the future. It is something you absolutely need to be aware of. You cannot let it happen again, but if you screwed up, I find the best defense for people who have screwed up and it’s a lower-level thing is just to admit, you know what? I just made a bad decision. I don’t have a drinking problem if it’s just one night and I’ve learned from it.
These are the things I’ve learned from it. These are the things I’ll do now to prevent it. And then, this is what I’m going to do in the future. And that’s what most boards of nursing want to hear is that if there is an identifiable problem that you have learned from it and then incorporate that into your practice and move forward in the future.
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