B.C.'s College of Nurses and Midwives is standing by discipline findings for a nurse who incompetently used the pregnancy drug Oxytocin after B.C.’s Supreme Court told it to reconsider disciplining the woman.
“The panel found that this conduct would be considered disgraceful by other members of the profession,” the reconsideration decision said.
The college found in 2019 that Shannon Whieldon had practiced incompetently and committed professional misconduct. That decision said the misconduct occurred April 2016 to January 2017 while she employed as a perinatal nurse at Langley Memorial Hospital.
The college found failure to follow standards when Whieldon:
• did not properly use Oxytocin when she made infusion rate changes not based on a patient's clinical presentation and fetal heart monitor record;
• did not accurately interpret an external electronic fetal heart monitor;
• failed to take appropriate steps when a dose of Erythromycin for an infant was not documented by instead documenting that the parent made an informed refusal for the administration of that drug, when in fact, the parent had not;
• by failing to follow standards and policies related to appropriate documentation;
• discharged a postpartum patient, without a physician's order;
• did not document signs of possible seizure activity before an infant did, in fact, have a seizure; and,
• engaged in conflict with a mother over breastfeeding plans.
“The panel found there to be a pattern of incompetent behaviour as opposed to a single instance,” the 2019 decision said.
A subsequent order said Whieldon was reprimanded; had her registration suspended for a year, precluding her from being a sole registered nurse on duty; ordered extensive remedial education; had a learning plan order instituted; and was told to have an intensive period of supervision in her new work environment.
It also included “an enduring limit prohibiting Ms. Whieldon from ever working in perinatal nursing again.”
Whieldon was ordered to pay the college’s costs of $20,016.
The appeal
Whieldon, however, appealed the college decision to B.C.’s Supreme Court, which issued a decision in August 2021.
She submitted to the court that the college discipline panel “made palpable and overriding errors of fact, breached the rules of natural justice and procedural fairness, and/or made errors in law by misapprehending the evidence.”
Whieldon said “the panel erred in concluding that she was aware of and willfully departed from the requirements of the Oxytocin protocol despite there being no evidence that she had been trained in relation to it,” according to Justice David Matsuhara's decision.
Matsuhara said the panel had erred in its finding on the seizure situation.
He further noted Whieldon was on leave when the Oxytocin protocol was significantly changed in 2012. He found that fact was material to the situation but treated as immaterial by the panel.
As such, he quashed those panel findings. He remitted the case to the college for clarification of confusion.
The reconsideration
In a newly released discipline order, the college said Whieldon:
• failed to administer and manage infusions of the medication Oxytocin appropriately according to nursing standards and hospital protocol;
• failed to accurately interpret external electronic fetal heart monitor strips;
• failed to escalate care when faced with obvious signs and symptoms of a seizure in an infant;
• failed to take appropriate steps when a dose of Erythromycin was not documented as given to an infant; rather, the registrant documented the parent made an informed refusal for the administration of that drug, when in fact, the parent had not;
• failed to follow standards and policies related to appropriate documentation; and,
• failed to obtain a discharge order prior to discharging a patient home.
In its Oct. 27 reconsideration decision, the college panel found Whieldon committed professional misconduct when she failed to administer Erythromycin ointment to an infant, advised the parent it was too late for the ointment to be given, failed to escalate the issue to her charge nurse or responsible physician, and falsified a patient record to indicate that an informed refusal had taken place, when she had not performed an informed refusal process and did not obtain the parent's informed refusal
The college's new discipline orders have yet to be released.
