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I Banished the "Handmaiden Syndrome" as a Professional Consultant by Catherine Lazo-Miller, RN, MSN, Indiana I am a legal nurse consultant, first and foremost. I consider myself an expert in medical-legal issues, including medical record review. I review and analyze medical issues for medical malpractice, personal injury and general litigation law firms, as well as insurance companies, corporate legal departments, healthcare professionals and individuals. I am NOT a paralegal, nor do I choose to be trained and labeled as one. I have neither needed nor wanted paralegal training to accomplish what I have as an legal nurse consultant. My role as a consultant has been based on my professional education and experiences in the nursing field. Legal nurse consultants have crusaded for our own paradigm. We deserve to be recognized as a professional group of nurses who have our own standards of practice. Unlike the role of a paralegal, our role is based on our knowledge of medical issues. Our skills at interpreting medical records and providing other services for which we are uniquely qualified as nurses are an asset to the legal profession and enhance their ability to interpret medical-legal issues. Paralegal-based legal nurse consultant programs should not exist. They are not for legal nurse consultants. They are just another way for paralegal schools to capitalize on a trend by implying that nurses need this training, thus discrediting our professional education and experience. I do NOT support these programs, nor will I participate as a faculty member in teaching nurses to be nurse paralegals. Such programs undermine the respect and compensation that I personally have earned as an legal nurse consultant. I am a consultant with a strong nursing foundation. I have transcended to a soaring level of achievement and contentment in my career. I do not even like the thought of being assigned to the paralegal section of some legal professional organization – that is disconcerting. Any nurse looking for new challenges in the medical-legal arena should seriously consider where she gets her legal nurse consultant education. Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz had the power to go home all the time – she just didn't know it. We have that power. We can choose where our educational needs should be met. There are many seasoned legal nurse consultants who have shared their expertise and spoken and written on the roles of the legal nurse consultant – seek out those authoritative individuals. Find a mentor! Learn from the legal nurse consultants who have been there. It is time for us to vocalize our professional mission, making a strong commitment based on our professional image and competency. We should retain our distinctiveness as nurse consultants who demand the recognition we have earned. Now is the time for legal nurse consultants to display proudly our own objectives and strategies that empower us to take responsibility for who we are. Banish the "handmaiden syndrome" forever. Dr. Philip McGraw, president of a litigation consulting firm, recently published Life Strategies: Doing What Works, Doing What Matters. Read it. He lists ten "life laws" that are essential for success. Life Law #10 is: "You have to name it before you can claim it." His strategy for fulfilling this law is to "get clear about what you want and take your turn." I am clear. I am not a nurse paralegal. I do not need additional training as a paralegal. My role is clear. I am a legal nurse consultant, first and foremost. Now it's your turn – who are you? © 1999 Medical-Legal Consulting Institute, Inc. Reprinted from National Medical-Legal Journal, Vol. 10, No. 3, 1999   
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