ORLANDO, FL – While looking at some lab values in conjunction with scientific research for her NP program, Nurse Francine Marcus miraculously found the cure to all kinds of cancer.  Said Francine Marcus, “I just put the numbers together and was able to see where my predecessors went wrong.”

nurse reprimandedWhen Francine Marcus told her nurse manager about her discovery, she was quickly reprimanded to stay within her scope of nursing practice and told to return to calculating urinary output and bringing blankets to the patients.

Nurse Manager Priscilla Jones clearly stated, “Your job is to follow protocol not to reinvent the wheel.  This behavior may warrant disciplinary action if it happens again.”  Manager Priscilla Jones then reviewed the tenets of nursing with Francine Marcus including changing EMR passwords constantly, taking blood pressure at 4 am, and using valuable nursing diagnoses like “disturbed energy field.”  “We are here to complete shift specific tasks and get high Press Ganey rankings,” said Priscilla.  “Do not deviate from protocol!”

The other administrators were outraged upon hearing of Francine Marcus’s discovery.  They agreed that she had really gone beyond her job scope and it was extremely inappropriate she was spending her time on trivial matters like the cure to cancer.  “We need to bill for new admits not find solutions that prohibit the patients from even needing the hospital,” stated administrator Bob Geney.  “This is why nursing students learn how to fold tight bed corners in nursing school rather than study advanced biology.”

Francine Marcus believes she may have also stumbled on the cure for ALS but now knows better never to speak of such ingenuity again.  She is now aware that protocol exists for a reason and that more lives will be saved charting Q2 turning of patients and early recognition of the popular NANDA “readiness for enhanced comfort.”  As of press time, she was busy carrying out the important mission of finding graham crackers for a patient’s aunt.