and stressful field. It takes long hours, devotion to caring for others, and

a lot of emotional strain. So how do nurses deal with the demands of

their job? Well, ten to twenty percent of nurses have substance abuse

problems. Substance abuse is defined as using alcohol or drugs to

become intoxicated or using prescription drugs beyond their stated

purpose(Griffith 2). Six to eight percent of all registered nurses have an

abuse problem that has actually impaired them from performing their

job. The ten to twenty percent of nurses that have substance abuse

problems correlates with the number of people in the general population

that have substance abuse problems. “Health professionals are in a

position to cause harm to individuals under their care if they’re under the

influence of a drug,” says Mary Haack, Ph.D., RN, an associate professor

at the University of Maryland School of Nursing (Borkowski 1).

The nursing profession as a whole is seen to be more at risk than

others because of the easy access to medicines, for starters. People tend

to believe that since people in the medical profession have such easy

nurse who is stealing their drugs. They can be endangering the patient by

difference between them that is the is that nurses and physicians have

potential harm when a colleague’s practice, in any setting, appears to be

Some topics in this essay:
Nursing Borkowski, Inc KPAPN, Monster Healthcare, Impaired Nurses, Ethics Nurses, Disabilities Act, substance abuse, impaired nurses, PhD RN, impaired nurse, medical profession, Stephen Borkowski, percent nurses substance, nurses substance abuse, job ten twenty, nurses substance, danis 6, ten twenty, percent nurses, twenty percent, twenty percent nurses, ten twenty percent, nurse floor,