I learned a long time ago that behavior is predictable. Past behavior is a good indicator of how an individual or organization will respond to current events. I don’t know why I was shocked to learn that the Arizona Board of Nursing is upping the ante on Amanda Trujillo. After all, she didn’t roll over and play dead when Banner Del E. Webb Medical Center and the BON tried to shut her down when she publicized her story. Now the BON is charging Amanda with using false academic credentials. Amana used the letter “S” at the end of her professional designation to indicate that she was a student back in 2010, and she forgot to change the auto sign on her personal email account when she dropped out of school due to illness. This buffoonery about credentials is an old ploy from the BON playbook. Do you remember the case of the Heart Attack Grill?

Let me refresh your memory. I first wrote about this story in 2006. It all started when the Heart Attack Grill—a theme restaurant whose specialties included the Quadruple Bypass Burger and Flatliner Fries, cooked in pure lard, opened for business. The waitresses, who are called “nurses,” wear skimpy, cleavage-baring outfits, high heels, and thigh-high stockings while serving artery-clogging meals. The BON took one look at the waitresses and sprang into action because it apparently thought that the public was too stupid to figure out that the waitresses weren’t really nurses. I wouldn’t think that the young woman in the picture was a nurse. Would you? The nursing board asked the Arizona attorney general to put the kibosh on the grill’s use of the word “nurses,” saying, “Only a person who holds a valid and current license to practice professional nursing may use the title ‘Nurse.’”

Back then I just thought the board was made up of educated idiots. Now it’s pretty apparent that the BON is also malicious. The board is investigating Amanda for deceiving, harming, or defrauding the public and/or stating or inferring that she was a nurse practitioner because she forgot to change the auto sign on her personal email account. It’s significant to note that the current charges lodged against Amanda are related to something that happened way before her run in with Banner Health. That means that the BON has been wasting taxpayers’ money trying to dig up dirt on Amanda. Why? Because it thinks that it can get away with it and that the public is stupid. The BON is charged with protecting the public’s welfare, not going after restaurants that call their waitresses nurses, or persecuting nurses who educate their patients about their healthcare options.

The Arizona BON is on a campaign to discredit Amanda Trujillo. I wonder what they will try next. Based on their past behavior, I’m sure it will be amazing.