Legal Question in Employment Law in Virginia

Hospital Employer obligation to Nurses

Thanks for your time.

I will try to be brief.

I am a RN and my first position after nursing school was as a labor and delivery nurse in a research hospital. I was told that I would be given six months of on the jo training however, due to a severe shortage I was ''on my own'' after just a week and a half. This was in 2001.

I was faced with a number of crisis situations which I had no formal training for. This was my first job and even experinced nurses are given extensive training when they enter a new field of care.

Long story short, I was faced with several tramatic situations and left the job due to health issues caused by job stress after less than a year.

I was so tramatized that I have basically lost my career because I am so afraid (recently diagnosed with PTSD due to this).

It was several years before I recognized that I needed help with mental health because initially my symptoms came out physically.

Now I am in a real dilema.

Do I still have any rights? Did I ever? To require the hospital to honor their training period ( I was PAID as a new nurse even though I worked as a independent one).

Due to unique nursing employment details, I basically can not get a ''good'' position any longer due to this. Any insight?


Asked on 5/25/08, 1:12 am

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

Re: Hospital Employer obligation to Nurses

Assuming that you were working for the hospital without a formal contract, I doubt that you would've had any viable recourse against the hospital based upon the events described, even if you had elected to purse such shortly after your separation.

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Answered on 5/25/08, 9:05 am


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