A nurse who signed patients’ medication charts, falsely indicating she had administered drugs, and who took another nurse’s handbag, has been reprimanded for professional misconduct. Former agency nurse Karen Faulkner, who is employed by a Gold Coast hospital, will have to work with a mentor and under conditions for the next 12 months. Ms Faulkner prematurely signed patient medication charts in advance of medications being administered and in one case did not give a patient an antibiotic she needed, a tribunal found. A doctor had ordered a Brisbane Private Hospital patient be given the antibiotic, prior to her having a total hip replacement in 2012, to ward against infection. Ms Faulkner signed the medication chart indicating she had given the patient the antibiotic Vancomycin at 6am on July 17, 2012, when she had not.
