It is Illegal to Call Yourself a Nurse if You Are Not Licensed & Why Doctors Should Care

It is a crime to refer to yourself as a nurse if you are not licensed as a nurse. If you are a medical assistant or nursing assistant for example, this means you cannot identify yourself as a nurse. I know in some practices it may be common practice to refer to medical assistants as nurses, but it is technically illegal.

Why is this important? Is this just elitist and differentiating between different levels of training and education in order to demean some and honor others? No, our patients have the right to know who is caring for them and what their role is. It should be clear who is a nurse, who is a doctor and really who are all of the staff caring for or interacting with patients. We would not allow nurses to refer to themselves as physicians.

If you are a LPN, LVN or RN, you can identify as a nurse. If a patients asks what you are licensed as you can explain. If you are an advanced practice nurse, physician assistant, medical doctor or any other clinician, you should explain what your role is.

Nurse Practice Act

According to the American Nurses Association, 39 states have language in their Nurse Practice Act that the title nurse is only to be used by those who are licensed (American Nurses Association, 2013).

In addition to the Nurse Practice Act, states may also have actual crimes on the books that allow for prosecution of individuals acting or reporting as a nurse. If you are the one presenting as a nurse when you are not, you could also be charged with practicing nursing without a license, which is also a crime.

If you have staff identifying themselves as a nurse in your practice as a physician, this can come back to haunt you too and not just the staff member falsely identifying themselves. This could potentially be reported to external regulators and get you into hot water if you are allowing this behavior or are not doing anything to discourage it. There are clear compliance and regulatory issues with allowing this.

Unauthorized Practice

Remember that the objective here is not to promote elitism or diminish the needed and important work of the medical assistants or other staff, but instead to fulfill the rights of patients to know who is caring for them and interacting with them. And in extreme cases, it could be cause for criminal action and leading to a claim unauthorized practice of nursing.

American Nurses Association (2013). Title “nurse” protection. Retrieved from https://www.nursingworld.org/practice-policy/advocacy/state/title-nurse-protection/