Nurse Up!

Andrew LopezAmerican Nurse Today

 

March 13 at 3:16pm ·

A “Position Statement” on the “Amanda Trujillo, RN vs Banner Del E. Webb Medical Center, Sun City Arizona” situation is respectfully requested. This could happen to any one of your readers, they need to know if they would have your support.

The American Nursing Association & Arizona Nurses Association to date have offered no assistance or support other than that they are “monitoring.”

If you can suggest other organizations that could help nurses in Amanda Trujillo’s position, we would like to list them on our site. Nurseup.com

This case is supported by nursing, medical leaders including:

Annette Tersigni, Carol Gino, Donna Wilk Cardillo, Echo Heron, Greg Mercer, Michael Pergrem, Patricia Patrica Iyer, Shahina Lakhani, Dr. Richard Wilmer and many others.

Amanda Trujillo, RN – Nurse fired for being a patient advocate, @PatIyer:”The story of Amanda Trujillo is a horrifying one. Briefly, she is a single mom who fought to get off welfare and fulfilled her dream of becoming a nurse. Not only did she become a nurse, she earned a masters and doctorate degree in nursing. One night while working at Banner Health in Arizona, she took care of a patient who was being asked to undergo a liver transplant.”
http://nurseup.com/wordpress/2012/02/amanda-trujillo-rn-fired-for-being-a-patient-advocate-pat-iyer-com-patiyer-nurseup-nursefriendly-amandatrujillo/

Thank you for your attention in this matter.

Andrew Lopez, RN
Nurseup.com, A Nursing Advocacy Organization
38 Tattersall Drive
West Deptford, New Jersey 08051
856-415-9617, Fax: 856-415-9618, info@nursefriedly.com, @nursefriendly
http://www.nurseup.com/

Additional Resources:

Articles in reverse order of publication:

Amanda Trujillo RN – fired for being a patient advocate, Posted on March 2, 2012 by Pat Iyer:”The story of Amanda Trujillo is a horrifying one. Briefly, she is a single mom who fought to get off welfare and fulfilled her dream of becoming a nurse. Not only did she become a nurse, she earned a masters degree in nursing. One night while working at Banner Health in Arizona, she took care of a patient who was being asked to undergo a liver transplant. In talking to the patient, Amanda learned that the patient did not fully understand what was going to occur. Amanda educated the patient. She explained the option of hospice instead. The patient decided against the transplant. Then the physician came in, had a well- witnessed tantrum at the hospital when he found out his patient had decided against surgery, and Amanda was fired by the hospital. Her case came up for review by the Arizona Board of Nursing. The summary of her case written by the attorney representing her is below. Amanda has been devastated in terms of her career and her finances. She is back on welfare, her dream of being a nurse shattered.” http://www.medleague.com/blog/2012/03/02/amanda-trujillo-rn-fired-for-being-a-patient-advocate/

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The Nurse Who Helped Too Much, Amy Tenderich, DiabetesMine:”It might be hard to believe in this day and age of “participatory medicine” and empowered patients — or in any day and age, really — but the fact is that an Arizona-based nurse was fired from her job recently for simply providing a patient too much information on his treatment options. The nurse’s name is Amanda Trujillo, a single mother living in Phoenix, and licensed nurse in Arizona since 2006. She specializes in cardiology, geriatrics, and end of life/palliative care. The sin she supposedly committed was setting up a consultation on hospice care for a patient suffering from end-stage liver disease, who was scheduled for surgery. This “interference” angered the patient’s physician, who then had Amanda fired and reported her to the Arizona State Board of Nursing, where she is now in danger of losing her nursing license. Fellow health care professionals and patient advocates are flooding the blogosphere in support of her cause!” https://www.diabetesmine.com/2012/03/the-nurse-who-helped-too-much.html

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Amanda Trujillo, part 2, Saturday, February 25, 2012, End of Shift Report – Stories From an Operating Room:”It gets much worse: the Arizona State Nursing Board has ordered Nurse Trujillo to undergo a mental health evaluation in retaliation for her going public with the matter.With the Boards paid psychiatrist to boot, not a disinterested third party. Whats more, they have also ordered her to turn over records from all the physicians she has ever seen for any reason. What happened to her rights of privacy? There seems to be nothing that this outrageous order could contribute to an investigation of the matter. And it turns out that the President of the board of Nursing is also in a position of authority at the hospital that fired Nurse Trujillo. Can anybody spell “conflict of interest”? This order for a mental health evaluation stinks of authoritarian excess reminding one of the KGB or Gestapo.”
http://endofshiftreport.blogspot.com/2012/02/amanda-trujillo-part-2.html

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Why physicians should care about Amanda Trujillo-KevinMD by @jaydoe February 25, 2012:”For the past month, the case of Amanda Trujillo has resonated deeply among nurses, triggering an avalanche of postings on Facebook, Twitter and in the nursing blogosphere. Trujillo is the Arizona nurse who was fired in April 2011 after providing education and making a hospice care consult request for an end-stage liver disease patient. This patient was slotted for pre-transplant evaluation and had poor understanding of the disease process and treatment options. Trujillo filled in the gaps for this patient. Trujillo then requested, at the patient’s own wish, a hospice team consult, documented her actions appropriately, and left a note (it was night shift) for the primary physician.”

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Why physicians should care about Amanda Trujillo, by J. Doe, RN in Patient, February 25, 2012:”For the past month, the case of Amanda Trujillo has resonated deeply among nurses, triggering an avalanche of postings on Facebook, Twitter and in the nursing blogosphere. Trujillo is the Arizona nurse who was fired in April 2011 after providing education and making a hospice care consult request for an end-stage liver disease patient. This patient was slotted for pre-transplant evaluation and had poor understanding of the disease process and treatment options. Trujillo filled in the gaps for this patient. Trujillo then requested, at the patient’s own wish, a hospice team consult, documented her actions appropriately, and left a note (it was night shift) for the primary physician. These actions — the education and the hospice team consult — drew the wrath of both the primary physician, who demanded her dismissal and her license, and also her nursing director, who told Trujillo she had ”messed up all the doctors’ hard work and planning for the surgery.” The patient-requested hospice care consult was cancelled. Trujillo’s employer subsequently fired her, and reported her to the Arizona State Board of Nursing for exceeding nursing scope of practice, though in fact, nurses previously had ordered a hospice care consult without consequence. In short, many nurses believe Trujillo was fired for educating and advocating for her patient.”
http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2012/02/physicians-care-amanda-trujillo.html

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Amanda Trujillo: An Unfortunate Case of Career Suicide, Friday, February 17, 2012, Crass Pollination:”I used to be really poor back in the day. I’m not talking “I had a five-year-old computer and sometimes I had to go to Subway instead of somewhere that was Zagat rated.” I’m talking no heat outside of a single space heater in below-freezing temps, a food budget of $10/week for three people, no functioning toilet (sh*tting outside in the snow sucks, take note), a leaky roof, and neighbors stopping by to give me and my son meat. Really, being poor sucks. I got straight As in college with all this going on.” http://crasspollination.blogspot.com/2012/02/amanda-trujillo-unfortunate-case-of.html

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Boards of Nursing and the Amanda Trujillo Case, February 17, 2012, By Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, AJN editor-in-chief:”Our prior post on the Amanda Trujillo case elicited many comments, on a variety of themes. There were also referrals and crosslinks to other sites supporting, analyzing, and weighing in on the situation, including statements from the Arizona Nurses Association and the ANA, and a post on a physician blog, “White Coat’s Call Room,” which has vowed to carry all the details once the case is decided.” http://ajnoffthecharts.com/2012/02/17/boards-of-nursing-and-the-amanda-trujillo-case/

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Here’s What You Think About RN Amanda Trujillo’s Story, February 15th, 2012, By Jennifer Olin, BSN, RN:”I rarely worry about losing my job as a nurse. I’m generally professional, mostly on time, anal retentive about patient safety and for the most part people seem to like me. I am bossy, but I am a nurse (specifically an OR nurse so that comes with the territory). I am demanding on my patient’s behalf (but sometimes that slips over into my personal life) and I hate charting (which is hard on my chart reviewers and why I love medical mission work). I share all this because I am human; just like every nurse. Most of us don’t consider we will lose our jobs for doing our jobs, sometimes no matter how difficult we are to work alongside. Arizona nurse Amanda Trujillo never considered she would lose her job and possibly her license for being safety conscious and demanding on her patient’s behalf.” http://www.rncentral.com/blog/2012/heres-what-you-think-about-rn-amanda-trujillos-story/

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Amanda Trujillo RN, Monday, February 13, 2012, End of Shift Report – Stories From an Operating Room:”I am breaking into my usual fiction to tell you about a real travesty taking place in Arizona. Amanda Trujillo RN advised a patient who was up for a liver transplant about other options at the patients request. This is a normal and expected duty of an RN. As a result, the patient and his family decided against the liver transplant. The Surgeon involved went ballistic, threw a well documented temper tantrum, went to the Hospital administration and demanded Nurse Trujillo’s termination, which they did. He then went and filed a complaint with the Arizona State Nursing Board who have placed Nurse Trujillo under investigation. The American Nurses Association, who supposedly represent nurses has issued a fatuous, self serving masterpiece of administrative-do-nothing statement that if anything, supports the hospital, the surgeon and the state board. The Arizona State Nurses Association also has done nothing.The leadership of the state board and the state association have been seen schmoozing with other powers that be. Am I surprised? No. Am I outraged? Yes. Over the years I have seen many, many instances of Nurses having to put up with abusive behavior if not outright assault and battery by Physicians. I have yet to see any Physician receive appropriate discipline, and in most instances no discipline.”
http://endofshiftreport.blogspot.com/2012/02/amanda-trujillo-rn.html

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Healthcare Providers Strive For Excellence, February 8th, 2012, By Jennifer Olin, BSN, RN, @JOlin2 :”Hospitals and other healthcare facilities that earn Magnet Recognition are examples of how nurses and nursing care can influence patient outcomes. It is a great honor and it is one healthcare providers spend a lot of time and money to achieve. However, there are only about 400 Magnet hospitals around the world and thousands of fine healthcare institutions employing nurses everywhere you look.”
http://www.rncentral.com/blog/2012/healthcare-providers-strive-for-excellence/

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Why Nurses are Furious about the Amanda Trujillo Case, February 7, 2012, Those Emergency Blues:”The case of Amanda Trujillo has generated a great deal of passionate commentary across the nursing blogosphere. Trujillo, as you may well know, is the nurse who was fired by Banner Health Del E. Webb Medical Center for requesting multi-disciplinary hospice care case management consult for a pre-transplant patient with end-stage liver disease. The request angered the patient’s physician — not the transplant surgeon, incidentally, nor someone with any knowledge of transplant surgery — who complained to Trujillo’s manager. After her termination, the hospital subsequently reported her to the Arizona State Board of Nursing for exceeding her scope of practice. If the Board finds against Trujillo, she may well face the loss of her license or other sanctions; in the event, her nursing career would be finished. Superficially, at least, an open and shut case, or least this is how Banner Health would like to project the controversy. Scratch the surface a little and matters change considerably. So why are nurses so furious? Part of it is the apparent coincidence of any number of other, seemingly random bits of information outside the direct narrative of Trujillo’s story. The fact that the Arizona State Board of Nursing chose to deem Trujillo’s attempt to defend herself publicly as “retaliatory behavior” just as her story was becoming part of the general conversation, and then ordered a psychiatric evaluation is one of those seemingly random bits. This struck me particularly. Suspicious minds might see a pattern to punish Trujillo for speaking up by publicly labelling her mentally disturbed (and in health care, as any nurse will tell you, acquiring that label is doubly damning.) For myself, I will be content to note that throughout history calling people crazy is a traditional means of discrediting those challenging authority and marginalizing dissent.”
http://torontoemerg.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/why-nurses-are-furious-about-the-amanda-trujillo-case/

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Amanda Trujillo, Whitecoat, Emergency Physicians Monthly, February 6, 2012:”I finally took the time to read some other blogs today. One of the issues that I found disturbing was the case of Amanda Trujillo. There are a lot of bits and pieces out there about what actually happened in this case. This blog post was reportedly an e-mail from Amanda describing the events. A summary of the post follows. Amanda was a registered nurse of six years , specializing in cardiology, geriatrics, and end of life/palliative care. In April 2011, she was caring for a dying patient at Banner Del E. Webb Medical Center who had agreed to a major invasive surgery recommended by a staff surgeon. Amanda used materials from her hospital to educate the patient about the details of the surgery and the aftercare. The patient became upset, stating that the surgeon never explained details of the surgery or what had to be done after the surgery (complex lifetime daily self care). Amanda also discovered that the patient “had no idea” that surgery could be refused or that the patient could enroll in hospice care. She educated the patient on those options as well.” http://www.epmonthly.com/whitecoat/2012/02/amanda-trujillo/

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• Kate Loving Shenk likes this.
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    Andrew Lopez For more information, visit http://www.nurseup.com/

    

    Amanda Trujillo, RN, Arizona Patient Advocate, #Nurseup #AmandaTrujillo

    www.nurseup.com

    Amanda Trujillo, RN, Arizona Patient Advocate, #Nurseup #AmandaTrujillo: This pa…See More

    March 13 at 3:24pm · Like · 1 ·
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    Shahina LakhaniThis is an important issue, Amanda Trujillo is just one of the nurses facing this, there are countless more who cower under fear and lack of support from organizations like yours. If nursing is to move forward it has to move forward collectively, hand in hand, bedside nurses, advanced practice nurses, nurse leaders and educators all united!

    Yesterday at 1:03pm · Unlike · 1

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