To report or not report: Discipline versus a Letter of Appreciation
Reporting troubling information to your licensing Board and navigating the subsequent investigation is seldom one’s first choice, but it can be done well, and it may spare you from discipline later. You might even discover that your licensing Board is your friend and ally. To illustrate this discussion, I am using two cases involving pharmacists and the Oregon Board of Pharmacy, but the same principle can apply to nurses before the Oregon State Board of Nursing and physicians before the Oregon Medical Board.
Two pharmacy cases that make the point
In one case, the pharmacist in charge (PIC) was managing a pharmacy technician whose qualifications to hold her technician’s license were suspect. The PIC did not report the technician, believing the Board of Pharmacy “would not have done anything” to help, since the Board licensed her in the first place. As he would later learn, however, had he made an appropriate report to the Board, he would have satisfied his professional obligation to report, while simultaneously gaining the Board’s participation in the problem, relieving him of much responsibility. A simple report to the Board would have spared him the grief that followed as he sought to manage a problem he could not manage, and should have instead reported. In the end, his failure to report the technician, and to work collaboratively with his licensing Board, proved a costly lesson: discipline.
By way of comparison, in an another case, the PIC discovered an ongoing drug theft that occurred on his watch, a drug theft that perhaps should have been discovered sooner. Nonetheless, his drug inventory reconciliations uncovered the drug loss and, through his extraordinary efforts, he identified the technician responsible for the drug theft. His reports to the Oregon Board of Pharmacy and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) were timely, and his participation with the Board during the investigation was exemplary. In the end, he was not disciplined, but instead received a letter of appreciation from the Oregon Board of Pharmacy.
The moral of the story
The crucial point not to be missed is that these two pharmacists could have reversed their fortunes (good or bad) by simply reversing their decisions to report to the Board (or not to report). I can assure you that the pharmacist that reported to the Board in the second example above (involving the drug theft), and then experienced the benefit of reporting, will do so again, should the need arise. As for the other pharmacist, the one that chose not to report his technician’s lack of qualifications, and faced the consequences, next time, he too will report to the Board.
