Medical/HR peas- a question

Not a medical or HR professional. But if your doctor and PT both said you can't work, then I don't think you can. Good luck to you and I hope you heal quickly.

Well after your FMLA is up your job may not be protected any longer. We hire nurses as well and we have had to terminate a few folks who were out of FMLA and were not released to come back. We needed to fill their spots since we are always always short staffed on rn's. We don't accommodate any restrictions from an injury that didn't happen at work. That is just begging for trouble!


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When I was on short term disability I could be off work as long as I wasn't cleared by my doctor for up to a year. After that I either had to go back to work or apply for long term disability. My immediate supervisor had no say in my going back to work or not. I never even talked to him. Every thing went through HR.

I shattered my elbow a few years ago and my doctor also said I could not go back to work for quite some time (it ended up being the full year allowable by short term disability), and I had a desk job! He explained that with the severity of the break, anything else that happened to it would necessitate me having a complete joint replacement with a plastic elbow. It sounds like your injury was worse than mine, so you would probably also be at risk for needing an artificial elbow should you injure yours again.

My sister had a surgery on her shoulder, didn't heed the doctor's warning about how critical it was that she follow the rehab steps and not do anything that would put her at risk of another injury. She injured it again and had to have a full artificial shoulder put in.

I would hate to see you return to work too soon and end up going in for a complete elbow replacement and needing even more time off. It is unfair for your supervisor to even ask you to "promise" you won't use that arm. That is outrageous. Especially since you work with patients who could injure you severely by grabbing onto you, as your physical therapist pointed out. I highly doubt your doctor would approve your return to work based on a promise. If he did, you need another doctor1

Whether or not they can fire you is a concern, I'm sure. Not knowing what the laws are in your area, I couldn't even begin to guess. I can just relate that in my situation, they were not required to hold my same position open for me beyond a period of time, I think it was 3 months. They had to take me back, but they could put me in another position within the company. Although, in my case, I was the only one in the company that could do what I was doing, so they kind of had to hold that particular position open.

As it worked out for my situation, I eventually returned to work after a year of being off and going through extensive physical therapy. I had tremendous trouble getting the flexibility of the arm to return.

Oddly enough, after I returned to work and had been back about a year, I fell head first down the stairs at home, breaking my ribs, clavicle, a bone in my face behind my eye and a few other miscellaneous things. I was about 5 months into that short term disability rehab after that injury when the company laid me off. I later learned that the company was being sold so there would have been no job when I was able to return to anyway. I am including this because I was concerned about the short term disability payments after the job stopped. I am in California, one of the few states that offer short term disability. The disability continued for the full year, even though I was no longer connected with my employer.

In my case, my doctor didn't want me returning to work at all, so I was able to take advantage of the long term disability insurance that I had while employed with that company. Even though I was no longer an employee, I was injured while I was, and the policy covered me, thankfully. They will pay until I turn 65, which is an incredible blessing for me. I don't know what would have happened if I was not eligible for that policy.

Please don't risk your health over this. I would imagine that both you and the hospital could be sued should a patient have something go wrong because you were only able to tend to them with one arm. Would your supervisor want that?

Do not go back until it is healed. My friend did and her supervisor didn't believe her should was injured. The f'ing supervisor yanked her arm and now my friend has almost no use of that arm and is on disability.

The point being that you never know if you are going to reinjure yourself

Sorry you got so badly hurt. I tried something similar recently. DD and I had rented Segways for her 13th birthday. Had a blast! Well, she wanted to do it again for her 19th. Ok, great. Well, I even paid attention to the in depth safety advice...make sure you have enough room for your wheels. We tried to go down a narrow alley to get back to the rental shop and I caught my wheel. The Segway and I fell over at a busy place in San Diego. So embarrassing! I hit my elbow pretty hard but luckily nothing was broken. I told her that was the last time for me on a Segway. I have a knee injury (prior to that) and I think it made me just hesitant enough that it was more scary than fun.

To answer your OP-I would not go back yet. Doing your job one handed would be nearly impossible. You could easily further injure yourself. I hope you get back on your feet soon.