Legal Question in Employment Law in District of Columbia

forced patient care?? Bullying?

I am an RN and work at a clinic that has 24/7 RN coverage. We recently had a patient who would come in for dressing changes to his bottom at night. This made the lone female staff uncomfortable and the PA (a male) agreed to tell the patient to only come in during regular hours.

That PA has since left and the patient presented himself to the clinic once again in the evening. I told the new PA (a male) who was with me that night about how this patient made me feel uncomfortable and that I did not want to perform his dressing change. The PA became very angry with me and forced me to perform the dressing change while he watched making me feel even more uncomfortable. This PA is now filing a complaint against me for refusing to care for a patient. Do I have any recourse against this PA or the company I work for? I feel his actions were very degrading to me.


Asked on 5/25/09, 2:46 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Michael Hendrickson Law Office Michael E. Hendrickson

Re: forced patient care?? Bullying?

Whatever recourse you may have, probably depends on

whether or not you are working under the protection of an employment contract or collective bargaining type of agreement. If you have no such protection and are employed in an employment at will jurisdiction such as DC, you are probably without viable recourse.

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Answered on 5/28/09, 8:27 am


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