The great Nurse Jackie once said, “Percocet should never be crushed, broken or chewed, unless you want it to hit your system like a bolt of lightning. Which is only a problem if you are scared of lightning which, I am not.” She said this as she was crushing Percocet and putting them in artificial sugar packets to enjoy throughout her long stressful day. Nurse Jackie maybe a fictional character but she sheds light on the fact that this is a serious problem. She was able to hide her addiction for years, just like many nurses in the non-fiction world. Drug addiction is a common problem, in the medical field, that people often overlook as displayed by the Virginia Board of Nursing and the television show Nurse Jackie.
It is seen that more and
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more nurses are becoming addicted to pain medications. According to Sue Heacock, the writer of Nurses and Substance Abuse, 10 to 15 percent of nurses in the United States, are addicted to either illegal or controlled substances (Heacock). That means one out of 10 nurses are addicted to some kind of drug. According to Heacock, there are multiple reasons for this to happen. Job stress is a major cause because nurses are expected to work long hours, take care of the sick and dying, and also often doing the work of two or three nurses (Heacock). Nurses that work in high stress areas like the Emergency Room and Intensive Care Unit are more like to use illegal substances (Heacock). Nurses also have an easy access to these medications; if they are addicted they often taking these pills away from their patients (Heacock). Nurses’ job are to put their patients’ needs before their own. They have to work long hours often not getting a break. Virginia's Board of Nursing has been feeding into the problem of nurses being addicted and stealing narcotics for years. Bonnie Zientek is a nursing director in multiple facilities in Richmond, West Virginia. In 1999, her employer reported to the Virginia Board of Nursing that she was stealing drug from patients under her care. The board offered to take away any record of her using if she went to rehab. She took the offer and went to rehab. Two years later she had another job and began stealing and using again. Zientek was stealing fentanyl, oxycodone, and morphine. In 2003, the state began to monitor more and making it harder for her to stealing the medication. She came up with the brilliant plan to “visit” the residents at a nursing home she was fired from. Zientek took pain patches off the residents, scraped the narcotic off, ingested it, and finally stuck the bandage back on the resident. The Board of Nursing was aware that she was addicted. How they allowed her to continue to keep her license and practice as a nurse, shows there are serious flaws in their system. Diane Hake is another example of the flaws in Virginia’s Board of Nursing.
Hake had not been a nurse for a year and she was reported for abusing illegal substances. She was also offered a deal to keep her record clean. She started working at a plastic surgery center but she could not handle narcotics. She found a way to get her fix. She began signing out the narcotics under patient's name and stole blank prescriptions meant for patients. She did this while she was still be monitored from the first time she was reported for abusing substances. She would also pretend to be a surgical technician while she called the pharmacy to get Vicodin. When she was caught, she was removed from …show more content…
practice. Nurse Jackie is a fictional television show about a nurse that is addicted to painkillers. Nurse Jackie is seen in almost every episode taking some kind of narcotic. She seems to be pretty functional. Jackie Payton is a mother of two daughters. She has a rocky relationship with both of them cause she works long hours in the hospital. She spends a majority of her time in the pharmacy having unprofessional sexual relations with the pharmacist, Eddie, who was later fired for helping her get the narcotics. She pretends that she has serious back pain and gets a doctor she works with to write her a prescription and she even changes the amount of refills from zero to 10. She also is seen stealing an entire bottle of pills from the pharmacy. Nurse Jackie went to rehab and a year later she was using again.
After her relapse, she had to befriend a local drug dealer. Her friends quickly noticed that she was not the same sober Jackie. The administrator found out she was using and she offered Jackie diversion, an intense program to help her get her nursing job back. Jackie was hesitant. She thought all her problems would go away, if she ran away. Jackie packed her bags and her pills, and drove away. She was involved in an accident and was arrested for having a suitcase full of pills. She was arrested and forced to be sober again. This time she would have to be sober long enough to get her nursing job back. She took the option of going through diversion. However, the hospital was closing and she would have to quickly clean her act up. She made it. Jackie was having a stressful last day of work and she took some pills and overdosed. Jackie never got better. She was addicted and nobody told her that she should stop being a nurse. Everybody kept giving her a second
chance, As demonstrated by the Virginia Board of Nursing and Nurse Jackie, drug addiction is a serious problem that is often overlooked in the medical field. Nurses have a high stress job and work long hours which increases their chances of turning to the illegal use and abuse of narcotics. Virginia’s Board of Nursing allowed multiple cases of addicted nurses continue to work. Nurse Jackie is a fictional show but it highlights a serious problem. Nurses should be required to get drug tested more often. The consequences should be greater for those who have been caught and not get the option to wipe their records clean. Wiping their record only makes it easier for nurses to continue to use and steal from their patients.
Donna has quit working as a prostitute and is currently on the road to recovery from years of addiction and abuse. As a child she suffered from years of neglect and sexual abuse from her immediate family members. Donna admits to using drugs when pregnant with her youngest child and suspects that he may have fetal alcohol syndrome as he is unable to control his emotions and has a difficult time in forming social bonds.
She explained how she relapsed after being 3 months clean. Since the relapse in 2015 to 2016 she became clean again in August of 2016 with the help of her fiancé and her family. Since she took responsibility for her actions and explained that she does have a problem. I believe that is the first step to recovery. She was very adamant about how she does do wrong and then she had a plan to do what was right in her life for herself and not for anyone else. It may seem selfish, but that is the only way to control an addiction within one’s self, in my opinion. Accepting what is wrong and willing to deal with it is a start and having a great support system will help tremendously. The State Board of Nursing should allow her a second chance to prove that she can overcome and control her addiction while preforming the career she worked hard to achieve. The board should place a strict probation, and tasks that she can perform should be evaluated periodically. In the Nurse Practice Act it states, “Use or unlawful possession of any controlled substance, as defined in chapter 195, or alcoholic beverage to an extent that such use impairs a person 's ability to perform the work of any profession licensed or regulated by sections 335.011 to 335.096 (pg.
Prescription and pharmaceutical drug abuse is beginning to expand as a social issue within the United States because of the variety of drugs, their growing availability, and the social acceptance and peer pressure to uses them. Many in the workforce are suffering and failing at getting better due to the desperation driving their addiction.
(2.) Nic Sheff is a chronic slipper when it comes to staying sober. He has gone in and out of rehabs faster than you would think possible. Finding excuses to use drugs again and eventually hit rock bottom seem to be his only skills in life. After what seemed to be an infinite struggle with himself, Nic finally pulls through and stays sober. His book shows these hardships and how he deals with them on the road to recovery. Some of his decisions are well thought-out, and others, not so much. He keeps the story alive by believing in a higher power, his passion for living and his love of others. While sober, he continues to be painfully aware of how much he has hurt others by using, especially his mom. "Sometimes I think she would just prefer it if I was gone completely, so she wouldn't have to deal with me and so her children would be safe. It hurts my feelings, but I don't blame her. I know what I've done." (197, Sheff) Nic's parents feel like they can't trust him after all the lying, cheating and stealing he has done while under the influence of drugs. I wouldn't either, but they find it somewhere in their hearts to forgive him and cautiously let him into their lives in the end. Honestly, I cannot relate to much of this at all. I have never used drugs, been kicked out of my parent's house or prostituted to make money to buy even more drugs. Nic had a terrible childhood filled with screaming fights between his (now-divorced) parents and nights left alone while mine was just fine. He has a bipolar disorder and severe depression while I do not. The amount of differences are uncountable.
In his article, “Why I Wrote The Crucible,” Arthur Miller speaks of the 1950’s “which nobody seems to remember clearly”- a time of fearful insanity and unrest. Anyone could be accused. Showing excessive opposition ensured prosecution. Most shrunk back from disputing the McCarthy hearings for fear of their safety. Now, this period of panic is viewed as absurd. As Miller describes Hitler as being almost comical to his generation, the modern generation sees the Salem witch trials as foolish scuffles between ignorant people. The actual events were much different as perceived. Just as a feud with a neighbor seems trivial to those not involved but of intense frustration to the embroiled , the trials were not silly and insignificant. The trials were more about personal issues between rivals than witchcraft itself- the witchcraft was a weapon for Salemites to obtain revenge on their enemies. A tool Miller uses to show the reader this emotion is Rebecca Nurse, seventy-year-old grandmother, wife, and respected member of Salem society. Miller modifies her character in his play. Some facts remain true in the play, others are altered, and some have been neglected altogether. What did he change, and what did he regret to? Why did Miller take such liberties with Rebecca’s character in his play?
...bolism of colors, her growing fondness of "Chameleon Lenny," right up to her first puff of the cigarette, it is evident that she will not be able to overcome her temptations and be drawn back into the world of drugs and alcohol, only more intense this time (93). She has seen the sober life and she isn't happy with it. Her cigarette smoking and drinking, although not illegal, will still conform to her downfall. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. At the beginning of the story we see hope for someone who brings cookies to her AA meetings, who sits and drinks coffee while her daughter is at dance practice, but unfortunately in the end, "There is only this infected blue enormity elongating defiantly" (107). Once an addict, always an addict, "When the glass was finished she would pour another. When the bottle was empty, she would buy another" (107).
Gwen Cummings lives in New York with her boyfriend Jasper. They drink and do drugs all night and usually ends up doing something that could harm themselves or others. Gwen’s risk taking behaviors gets worse and worse until she ends up ruining her sister Lily’s wedding and getting behind a car drunk. This choice ends with her driving through a house and she ends up in rehab. Gwen’s drug and drinking behaviors affect her whole life, even if she does not see it that way. She believes that she does not have a problem and that what she is doing is not wrong. It is not until after she is almost kicked out of rehab for jumping out the window to get drugs because she cannot handle the withdraw
In the end it seems as though there is no real moral or lesson to be learned. She wasn't really an addict; she just liked to drink. No long recovery, no epiphany. No treatment, no withdrawal problems. No lasting health issues. No real permanent problems in the end.
Almost one hundred years ago, prescription drugs like morphine were available at almost any general store. Women carried bottles of very addictive potent opiate based pain killers in their purse. Many individuals like Edgar Allen Poe died from such addictions. Since that time through various federal, state and local laws, drugs like morphine are now prescription drugs; however, this has not stopped the addiction to opiate based pain killers. Today’s society combats an ever increasing number of very deadly addictive drugs from designer drugs to narcotics to the less potent but equally destructive alcohol and marijuana. With all of these new and old drugs going in and out of vogue with addicts, it appears that the increase of misuse and abuse is founded greater in the prescription opiate based painkillers.
In 1906, the Pure Food and Drug Act, that was years in the making was finally passed under President Roosevelt. This law reflected a sea change in medicine-- an unprecedented wave of regulations. No longer could drug companies have a secret formula and hide potentially toxic substances such as heroin under their patent. The law required drug companies to specify the ingredients of medications on the label. It also regulated the purity and dosage of substances. Not by mere coincidence was the law passed only about five years after Bayer, a German based drug company began selling the morphine derivative, heroin. Thought to be a safe, non-habit forming alternative to morphine, heroin quickly became the “cure-all drug” that was used to treat anything from coughs to restlessness. Yet, just as quickly as it became a household staple, many began to question the innocence of the substance. While the 1906 law had inherent weaknesses, it signaled the beginning of the end for “cure-all” drugs, such as opiate-filled “soothing syrups” that were used for infants. By tracing and evaluating various reports by doctors and investigative journalists on the medical use of heroin, it is clear that the desire for this legislative measure developed from an offshoot in the medical community-- a transformation that took doctors out from behind the curtain, and brought the public into a new era of awareness.
Nurse Jackie is a television series that is set in a hospital environment. Within the hospital there is an interdisciplinary approach which focuses more on the work the nurses perform. Jackie is the main character who we follow and is an emergency department (ED) nurse. Jackie is a hard working nurse who is experiencing severe back pack pain thus causing her to use narcotics to control the pain. That said, this paper will explore how nursing and Jackie’s character is portrayed in the show as well as how Jackie can be seen as a leader (Austin, 2009).
Andrea, her roommate, is seeking treatment from addiction to heroin and self-harm. Gwen refuses to having anything to do with the treatment center and group therapy. She believes she doesn’t have a drinking problem at all and therapy is silly. While still denying she has a problem, her boyfriend Jasper slips her a bottle of pills while visiting her. Gwen and Jasper leave the campus and have a night of partying. Gwen arrives back in her room the next morning clearly intoxicated. Cornell, the director of the rehab facility, confronts Gwen and informs her that she violated the rules of the facility. Gwen is told she is being kicked out of the program and is being sent to jail. She becomes outraged and denies that she has a problem and can quit whenever she chooses. Leaving the director’s office, she goes to her bedroom and decides to take the pills that Jasper slipped her. She ends up spitting out the pills and throwing the rest of the bottle out of the window.
Her roommate, a seventeen-year-old girl named Andrea, is a recovering heroin addict who also has a history of self-harm. At first, Gwen refuses to have anything to do with the treatment programs and denies that she even has a drinking problem. One day, Jasper shows up to visit and slips her a bottle of Vicodin. The two then proceed to sneak away from the rehab facility for a day of partying. That night, Gwen returns clearly intoxicated and makes her way to her bedroom. The next day, she is confronted by Cornell, the rehab facility director and fellow recovering addict. He informs her that she has broken the rules of the facility and is being kicked out and sent to jail. Gwen becomes infuriated and continues to deny that she has a problem with alcohol and states that she can quit if she had the desire. She storms out of Cornell’s office and off to her room where she rummages through a tissue box to find her stash of pills. Gwen proceeds to take a pill of Vicodin, but spits it back out before swallowing. She then tosses the remaining pills in the bottle out the window proving to herself she does not need
Around the 1960s, nursing educational leaders wanted to formulate a nursing theory that contained knowledge and basic principles to guide future nurses’ in their practice (Thorne, 2010, p.64). Thus, Jacqueline Fawcett introduced the metaparadigm of nursing. Metaparadigm “identifies the concepts central to the discipline without relating them to the assumptions of a particular world view” (MacIntyre & Mcdonald, 2014). Fawcett’s metaparadigm of nursing included concepts of person, environment, health, and nursing that were interrelated. The metaparadigm ultimately contributed to conceptual framework to guide nurses to perform critical thinking and the nursing process in everyday experiences in clinical settings.
Nursing has been and always will be a profession that is constantly changing. Nurses were once prostitutes, thieves, and women who were forced to practice as a nurse instead of serving jail time. Today, however, nursing is looked at as one of the most respected and well-regarded careers. There were several people who contributed to the change in nursing from years ago to what it is today. Virginia Henderson was one of those people. Called the first lady of nursing by many, Henderson is credited with creating the definition of nursing.