Professional Conduct, Prohibited Practices, Disciplinary Action, and Board Enforcement
This final domain ties everything together: the Board's enforcement machinery. The Board licenses, investigates complaints, and imposes discipline ranging from reprimand to suspension or revocation, plus civil penalties. Conduct standards include practicing within scope and competence, avoiding impairment, maintaining confidentiality, avoiding fraud and deception, and cooperating with Board investigations.
Prohibited practices commonly tested: dispensing without a valid prescription or valid authority; practicing on a lapsed credential; falsifying records; diverting controlled substances; buying or selling drugs outside licensed channels; aiding unlicensed practice (for example, allowing an unregistered technician to perform technician functions or a pharmacist to practice while unlicensed); failing to report required events; and patient exploitation or boundary violations.
Disciplinary process concepts: complaint, investigation, and a hearing with due-process protections; the Board may impose interim action where there is a threat to public safety; discipline is reported and may affect other state licenses. The Board can also discipline a facility (license suspension, conditions, fines) separately from the individual practitioner.
Traps: (1) assuming that a clinically well-intentioned act cannot be a violation - intent does not cure unauthorized practice; (2) forgetting the duty to report certain conduct, including impaired or unlicensed practice by colleagues; (3) assuming the Board cannot act until a criminal conviction occurs; (4) overlooking that both the person and the facility can be sanctioned for the same event; (5) confusing a lapsed-license administrative fee with discipline - reinstatement fees do not erase the underlying violation.
Rule of thumb: for any conduct question, apply three filters - was there legal authority, was the act within scope, and was it accurately documented? A "no" on any filter is a violation regardless of good intentions.
Worked example: A pharmacist, wanting to help an uninsured patient, dispenses a refill on an expired prescription with no prescriber authorization. This is a prohibited practice despite beneficent motive; the lawful alternative is a prescriber contact or an authorized patient-assistance pathway, documented.