Hundreds of nurses have been punished by other states while maintaining California licenses

Tracy Weber and Charles Ornstein
June 28, 2010

The state's Board of Registered Nursing has discovered that some 3,500 of its nurses have been punished for misconduct by other states — hundreds even had their licenses revoked — while maintaining clean licenses in California.

As many as 2,000 of these nurses now will face discipline in California, officials estimate. That's more registered nurses than the state has sanctioned in the last four years combined.

The board's discovery was prompted by a Times/ProPublica investigation last year that found hundreds of instances in which California nurses had been sanctioned elsewhere for sexual abuse, neglect, rampant drug use and criminality but could work freely in California. the rest