The nurse held a practical nurse license from 1982 and a registered nurse license from 2010. In May 2010, while working at a hospital in Lewes, Delaware, sixteen separate drug withdrawals from the automated dispensing cabinet over three shifts were never recorded on patient charts. The hospital's electronic tracking system was malfunctioning at the time, but nothing prevented manual charting. In June 2010, a Vicodin pill was removed from the cabinet, placed in the nurse's pocket, and never administered, recorded, or documented as wasted. The nurse acknowledged these incidents, was terminated by the hospital, and received a letter of reprimand from the Board of Nursing in November 2011.
The nurse then took a position at Sussex Correctional Institute in Georgetown. In June 2011, the prison pharmacy noticed an exponential increase in orders for Soma, a muscle relaxant, even though only two inmates at the facility were prescribed it. The health services administrator for the prison's contracted medical provider opened an investigation. Two cards of Soma, each holding sixty pills, disappeared from a drawer while the nurse was on duty, and video later captured the nurse opening the drawer and removing two cards containing Soma and another drug.
In a meeting with the administrator and the warden, the nurse initially denied the theft. According to the administrator's testimony, the nurse then said the pills were taken for personal use, not for sale or for patients. The nurse was terminated and asked that the incident not be reported, but the administrator reported it to the Board in July 2011. A Division of Professional Regulation investigator testified that the nurse at first denied the theft and any drug problem during questioning, but eventually acknowledged the theft and said no professional treatment was being sought.
The State filed a complaint on September 11, 2012, citing both the earlier documentation failures and the prison theft as unprofessional conduct. The Board treated the matter as a second instance of discipline involving medication use and imposed a two-year suspension with conditions for re-entry. On appeal, the Superior Court held that the sanction was supported by substantial evidence, was within the Board's authority, and served to protect the public while leaving a path to rehabilitation, and affirmed the decision on November 7, 2013.