Florida nurse lied about alcoholism while applying for license from sober home, state says
When nurse Kelly Kavcsak came from North Carolina to West Palm Beach, her application to the Florida Board of Nursing for an advanced practice registered nurse license said she hadn’t been treated for a substance abuse disorder in five years.
In reality, the Florida Department of Health said, Kavcsak was a sober living home resident at the time of the application.
Kavscak got her license in April 2021. But, the alleged concealment and subsequent incidents and “severe alcohol use disorder” diagnosis prompted an emergency restriction order (ERO) and administrative complaint by the Florida Department of Health against Kavcsak in June.
The ERO prevents Kavcsak from practicing as a nurse until an evaluator from the Intervention Project for Nurses, which monitors the treatment of nurses dealing with substance abuse, says she’s “safe to resume the practice of nursing.” The administrative complaint starts the discipline ball rolling toward the Florida Board of Nursing.
An email to the address on Kavscak’s online Florida Department of Health profile hasn’t been answered.
The bottle and the damage done?
Online North Carolina records say Kavscak still has her registered nurse license in that state. Her Florida Department of Health online profile says she’s also a licensed registered nurse in New York.
The ERO says Kavscak moved to the Hanley Center, an addiction treatment center in West Palm Beach, from North Carolina in December 2020.
From then until May 2021, the ERO said, Kavscak went through a “five-day medical detoxification, 45 days of residential treatment, three weeks of partial hospitalization and three months of intensive outpatient treatment with sober living treatment of her substance use disorders.”
In March, while in the sober living home part of the Hanley Center, Kavscak applied for the advanced practical registered nurse license. The ERO and the complaint say two of the questions asked on the application were:
“During the last five years, have you been treated for or had a recurrence of, a diagnosed substance-related (alcohol or drug) disorder that impaired or would impair your ability to practice?”
“During the last five years, were you admitted or directed into a program for the treatment of a diagnosed substance-related (alcohol or drug) disorder or, if you were previously in such a program, did you suffer a relapse?”
The ERO and the complaint say Kavscak answered “no.”
The ERO said when Kavscak didn’t show up at Boynton Beach’s Cameron Spine on Jan. 25, her supervisors searched for her and found she’d been admitted to the emergency room and transferred to the stabilization unit at HCA Florida JFK Hospital in Atlantis. She later told Dr. Lawrence Wilson she’d relapsed on Jan. 23, bought a bottle of vodka and drank a pint a day before breaking her ankle on Jan. 25.
Kavscak’s session with Wilton had been ordered by IPN after the injury. The ERO said Kavscak told Wilson that she began drinking at 16 and was pounding half a gallon of vodka before suffering a seizure that sent her to Duke University Hospital in 2020. After that, her parents sent her to Hanley Center.
