The Case of Amanda Trujillo

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

Post updated on January 10, 2013; see final paragraph. Amanda Trujillo, MSN, RN, is a nurse who until recently worked at Banner Del Webb Hospital in Sun City, Arizona, until she was fired for, as she claims, just doing what she’s obligated to do as a nurse—specifically, providing a patient information about a surgical procedure in an attempt to support fully informed decision making. (You can read her e-mail detailing her story here. She did not, as she has pointed out in comments, ever attempt to directly obtain informed consent herself.)

Amanda Trujillo

Ms. Trujillo says that, when the patient had a change of heart about the surgery, she requested a hospice consult. After a physician complained that Trujillo had overstepped her scope of practice, the hospital filed a complaint with the Arizona Board of Nursing, which has launched an investigation.

Ms. Trujillo has gone public with her story, sending e-mails and tweets to editors, public officials, bloggers, and the news media. The nursing blogosphere is full of posts with her story—Emergiblog, vdutton’s posterous (which has her attorney’s response to the complaint), and thenerdynurse, as well as a number of others. On January 31, she was interviewed on local television. She makes a […]