My victory for nurses’ rights will help change the system for every Kansan | Opinion

When I wrote for The Star last December, I was in the middle of the fight of my professional life. The Kansas State Board of Nursing decided that giving speeches about dementia while my license briefly lapsed as I cared for my husband through cancer treatment constituted “unprofessional conduct.” Its members wanted me to admit guilt and accept a permanent mark in three national nursing databases that would have made me essentially unemployable. I refused.

Today, I’m writing to tell you that it’s over. On June 10, a Shawnee County district court judge signed an order vacating all disciplinary proceedings against me. Every charge, every finding, every consequence arising from that lapsed license is now void and of no effect.

But the victory is only part of the story. What it took to get here matters just as much.

From the beginning, everyone I trusted told me the same thing: Sign the agreement and move on. My attorney, my colleagues and others familiar with the system all said the Board of Nursing was virtually unbeatable. The board could rule against a nurse even after she won in administrative court. Losing nurses could be forced to pay the board’s legal fees, and courts were required to defer to the agency’s judgment. The deck was stacked.

I understood the odds. I signed nothing.

I won’t pretend that the decision came without cost. There were months when I was nearly out of money. My career remained in limbo, and I watched colleagues distance themselves when they weren’t sure I’d survive the fight.

But my battle buddies stayed with me: my husband, fellow nurses, legislators who listened, media allies who told the story and, when I was nearly out of options, the nonprofit law firm Pacific Legal Foundation. PLF took my case pro bono and fought not just for me, but for every nurse caught in this system.

While fighting my case in court, the foundation also helped draft legislative reforms, supported lobbying efforts, coordinated public education and worked to end the automatic court deference that made the board so hard to challenge. It wasn’t simply litigating a case — it was changing the system.

And we won. Gov. Laura Kelly signed Kansas House Bill 2528, redefining “unprofessional conduct” to cover only actions that threaten patient safety — not paperwork errors or speeches to audiences of older adults. Nurses harmed by the old rules will have their records cleared, and the renewal process now includes actual notice before a license lapses.

Other states are watching. That’s what happens when someone refuses to give up simply because everyone says the fight can’t be won.

I didn’t do this alone. As a person of faith, I believe God put the right people in my path at the right time. I’m grateful to my husband, family, friends, legislators who stood with us and every nurse who shared her or his story.

I’m also writing a book because I want others facing seemingly impossible battles with licensing boards or government agencies to know they don’t have to surrender.

My case was never about me. It was about what happens when bureaucracies are allowed to operate without accountability and count on people giving up. Kansas faces a real nursing shortage, and this fight proved these systems can be changed when someone refuses to accept that they can’t.

I was told no one beats the Board of Nursing. I know differently now.

Amy Rose Siple is a nurse practitioner with more than 30 years of experience and a client of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit Pacific Legal Foundation.