What is my legal and Ethical Obligation?

While on another nursing unit the other night, I witnessed a RN calling in a prescription for another nurse. Nurse #1 asked nurse #2 to call in a refill for her. Nurse #2 requested her birthdate, drug and dosage needed. She then called the prescription in to a local pharmacy under the name of a doctor that practices on that unit. The doctor was not present and had not been there all evening. These nurses seemed very comfortable with this transaction.

Where do I stand as a witness? By doing this in front of me, have they pulled me into the crime?
We are not attorneys so we can not give legal advice on this site. I'd not get involved in it if I were you. Crime seems to be an overstatement. Maybe the doctor knows that this is a common practice and doesn't care.

Was the nurse calling in a valid refill for a prescription for a patient written by that doctor? If so, that's probably perfectly legal. Many states allow nurses to call in prescriptions for doctors and it happens frequently in doctor's offices. Was the nurse calling in a valid prescription refill for the other nurse written by that doctor? This is probably also legal although possibly unethical to be doing it during work time. If the nurse was calling in a false prescription, ie, one the doctor had never written, then that would mean the nurses is prescribing meds without legal rights to do so. You would need to consult an attorney regarding your legal obligations in this situation. Ethically, you have no obligations, but the question is what you are comfortable doing/not doing. Are you sure that this practice is illegal/unethical? If you're not, you might be better of just letting it go. If you feel something needs to be done, you could send an anonymous letter to the director of the department, advising her of the practice. Honestly from what you discribed, it doesn't sound like the nurses were doing anything wrong.

Since you are not involved, I vote stay out of it.

You just don't know who talked to who. The nurse could have already talked her s/s over with a doc pal, eg something like sinus infection, etc. and the doc might have said sure, go ahead and get xxx. That would need someone else to call it in. Docs do it for other docs and nurses all the time, and there is no exam.And, I'll add that if what I said was the case, then wow, are you gonna be unpopular fast with all levels where you work if you were wrong about the situation and reported these people.

you have no obligations, because you simply do not know the full story.as advised, stay out of it.leslie

If all that the nurse was doing was calling for a refill on a legit script, then she could have just called herself. She was having the second nurse call for a script that had not been oked by her doctor. I don't have to be an attorney to know this is illegal. I also find it hard to believe that no one thinks this is ethical. Think Edmund Burke.

I did a quick read and various states have provisions for for this if there are standing orders from the MD. Reading the original story this could also be a verbal order that you wouldn't know about?For my personal learning, am I right in assuming that if this is not a patient of mine that I should not be reading their chart even if to second guess what I think is some kind of violation?

Quote from Laurie52If all that the nurse was doing was calling for a refill on a legit script, then she could have just called herself. She was having the second nurse call for a script that had not been oked by her doctor. I don't have to be an attorney to know this is illegal. I also find it hard to believe that no one thinks this is ethical. Think Edmund Burke.

One other thing I just thought of...please illuminate me if you know about this: If a doc gives a verbal order, they still have to cosign later, even though the nurse had to write the order. If a nurse calls in an Rx for a doc, are they made aware that a script was called in under their name? Do they have to go through some kind a process to verify or "cosign" the order phoned in to the pharmacy by the RN? Just curious.

Quote from Laurie52If all that the nurse was doing was calling for a refill on a legit script, then she could have just called herself. She was having the second nurse call for a script that had not been oked by her doctor. I don't have to be an attorney to know this is illegal. I also find it hard to believe that no one thinks this is ethical. Think Edmund Burke.

Keep out of it. Say NOTHING to ANYONE. MYOB because you really don't know all the details. MOVE ON.

Stay out of it. Don't be an avenging crusader. It didn't concern any of your patients. The road of unemployment and law suits are lined with good intentions. Forget about it. You don't know what when on before you got there. all you saw was a nurse making a call for another nurse. She could have talked to the doctor on the phone. The other nurse could have talked to the doctor earlier that day. If it was a refill, what crime? No one was hurt. Leave this one alone.