mkrishnan
Dec 27, 2009, 02:32 PM
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-nurses-fingerprints26-2009dec26,0,3288465.story?track=rss
Using newly required fingerprint screening, the state found registered nurses who had been convicted of murder, sex offenses, robbery and assault.
Dozens of registered nurses who have been convicted of serious crimes including murder, sex offenses, robbery and assault have been identified by California regulators reviewing newly required fingerprints from tens of thousands of caregivers.
The state Board of Registered Nursing expanded its review of nurses' criminal records after an October 2008 story by The Times and the nonprofit news organization ProPublica found that regulators often didn't know about nurses' convictions and didn't act quickly once they learned of them.
At the time, nurses who had received licenses before 1990 were exempt from providing fingerprints, which are used to flag arrests for regulators. Since March, the board has required those nurses to submit their fingerprints.
Most of the crimes turned up are misdemeanors, such as driving under the influence, petty theft or fraud. But the records as of November also included two murders, two solicitations for murder, an attempted murder, a manslaughter and a vehicular homicide. There also were 19 convictions for assault, including five felonies, and 39 for sex offenses, three of them felonies.
...
The fingerprinting effort is being expanded to include all licensed health professionals in the state. Until now each of the state's health regulatory agencies set its own rules about who had to submit prints. Close to a third of the state's 937,100 licensed healthcare workers had not been screened as of December 2008. Even within the state, the rules were inconsistent for different groups of health professionals.
Interesting... there's a tremendous shortage of nurses, which perhaps contributes to some cutting of corners in their cases. I was fingerprinted for my provisional licensure here in MI, and a background check was done. Now I don't have a criminal record, but the process seems less than transparent in terms of what was actually checked before I got my license (the biggest hangup in my case was repeatedly wrangling with the state health board because their processor could not read my transcript from the University of Florida properly and therefore concluded I didn't have a PhD :rolleyes: ).
I've never heard, actually, in my field, of anyone who got into trouble with the background check aspect of their claim. Furthermore, I don't think that grad schools routinely do background checks before people are start grad school, in spite of the fact that they deliver clinical services and interact with patients in grad school (not to mention, that if they are going to have trouble getting licensed a the end of their training, it might be reasonable to consider this when admitting them).
Using newly required fingerprint screening, the state found registered nurses who had been convicted of murder, sex offenses, robbery and assault.
Dozens of registered nurses who have been convicted of serious crimes including murder, sex offenses, robbery and assault have been identified by California regulators reviewing newly required fingerprints from tens of thousands of caregivers.
The state Board of Registered Nursing expanded its review of nurses' criminal records after an October 2008 story by The Times and the nonprofit news organization ProPublica found that regulators often didn't know about nurses' convictions and didn't act quickly once they learned of them.
At the time, nurses who had received licenses before 1990 were exempt from providing fingerprints, which are used to flag arrests for regulators. Since March, the board has required those nurses to submit their fingerprints.
Most of the crimes turned up are misdemeanors, such as driving under the influence, petty theft or fraud. But the records as of November also included two murders, two solicitations for murder, an attempted murder, a manslaughter and a vehicular homicide. There also were 19 convictions for assault, including five felonies, and 39 for sex offenses, three of them felonies.
...
The fingerprinting effort is being expanded to include all licensed health professionals in the state. Until now each of the state's health regulatory agencies set its own rules about who had to submit prints. Close to a third of the state's 937,100 licensed healthcare workers had not been screened as of December 2008. Even within the state, the rules were inconsistent for different groups of health professionals.
Interesting... there's a tremendous shortage of nurses, which perhaps contributes to some cutting of corners in their cases. I was fingerprinted for my provisional licensure here in MI, and a background check was done. Now I don't have a criminal record, but the process seems less than transparent in terms of what was actually checked before I got my license (the biggest hangup in my case was repeatedly wrangling with the state health board because their processor could not read my transcript from the University of Florida properly and therefore concluded I didn't have a PhD :rolleyes: ).
I've never heard, actually, in my field, of anyone who got into trouble with the background check aspect of their claim. Furthermore, I don't think that grad schools routinely do background checks before people are start grad school, in spite of the fact that they deliver clinical services and interact with patients in grad school (not to mention, that if they are going to have trouble getting licensed a the end of their training, it might be reasonable to consider this when admitting them).
