By Kate Farrish
The Board of Examiners for Nursing on Wednesday disciplined 10 nurses, including revoking the licenses of three nurses and imposing fines on two others.
The board revoked the licensed practical nurse license of Laurie Davidson of Bolton after finding that she failed to properly document medical records while working in 2015 as a nurse at Walnut Hill Care Center in New Britain.
Davidson has an 18-year history of substance abuse and was suspected of taking “excessive” amounts of drugs from Walnut Hill, the board’s memorandum of decision said.
The board revoked the registered nurse license of Amanda Alarcon of Shelton for failing to attend therapy sessions or submit to drug tests, its memorandum of decision said. Those were violations of a four-year probation that the board imposed in 2017 because she had abused heroin between 2011 and 2014, state records show.
The board also revoked the RN license of Dana Kendrick of Hamden in connection with charges she faced before the Nevada State Board of Nursing. Records show that Kendrick, who also holds a nursing license in Nevada, tested positive for marijuana and was reprimanded by Nevada officials.
The Connecticut board can impose discipline on a nurse licensed in Connecticut if the nurse has been disciplined in other states.
The board fined RN Luisa Young of Trumbull $2,500, reprimanded her license and placed it on probation for a year. While enrolled in a master’s of nursing program online at Bradley University in Illinois, Young forged the signature of her preceptor, or supervisor, on exams and time logs and created fictitious patient records, a consent order she agreed to said. She forged the signature on a log that said she had completed the required 150 hours of training when she had only completed 16 hours, the order said. Young chose not to contest the allegations.
The board fined RN Nikita Gena Culton of Katy, Texas $500 and reprimanded her RN license because, a consent order said, she failed to acknowledge that she had been disciplined in Texas when she applied for her Connecticut nursing license in 2018.
The Texas action was a result of Culton intentionally sticking the hand of a co-worker with a syringe needle, a consent order she agreed to said. By signing the order in Connecticut, she chose not to contest the allegations.
The board reprimanded the LPN license of Amanda Hansen, formerly of Wolcott, in connection with her handling of a medically fragile child while working in the patient’s home for PSA Healthcare of Plainville in 2016, records show.
A consent order Hansen agreed to said that she repositioned the child in an “aggressive and rough manner” and failed to properly suction the patient’s airway. She has taken several courses in the care of patients’ airways and related topics. Hansen admitted no wrongdoing but chose not to contest the allegations against her.
State officials said Hansen is now living in California and does not have an active LPN license in Connecticut.
The board suspended the RN license of Karina Francis of Manchester for six months and placed her license on probation for four years. The probation will begin concurrently with the suspension. The board’s memorandum of decision says that Francis, who previously lived in Colchester, used controlled substances to excess in 2016 and 2017.
The probation requires her to pass random drug tests and see a therapist for chemical dependency.
The board suspended the RN license of Christopher Kay of Enfield, who works for the state Department of Correction, saying his abuse of alcohol affects his ability to practice as a nurse.
Records show he abused alcohol to excess from 2015 to 2017 and has not been compliant with treatment and monitoring in an alternative program run by the Health Assistance InterVention Network since December.
The board also placed the licenses of the following nurses on probation for four years and ordered them to pass random drug and alcohol tests:
• LPN Tammy Piccirillo of Seymour who, according to a consent order she signed, abused opiates from 2017 to 2018.
• LPN Sandra Rowe of Yantic section of Norwich, who drank alcohol in 2014 while working as a private duty nurse in a patient’s home, a consent order she signed said. The order also said that several times between 2014 and 2019, Rowe abused alcohol to excess.
In signing the consent orders, the two nurses chose not to contest the allegations against them.
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