Physician Shoves Nurse: Discipline Upheld By Court
Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession
April 1997
A brief scuffle broke out in the operating room between a nurse and a physician over a lead apron. The physician apparently wanted the one a nurse was wearing. According to the Missouri Court of Appeals, the physician grabbed and shoved the nurse when he did not get his way. The OR nursing supervisor heard the commotion, and brought the physician a suitable apron to wear.
The nurse filed a formal complaint with the state medical board. The court upheld the censure imposed upon the physician by the state medical board based on the nurse’s complaint. Pushing, poking or shoving a nurse is unprofessional conduct for a physician, the court ruled.
Hoffman vs. State Board of Registration for the Healing Arts, 936 S.W. 2d 182 (Mo. App., 1996).