Appendix A: California Department of Education (CDE) K.C. Settlement Agreement and Legal Advisory
“professional, registered, graduate or trained nurse” ( ibid .) — indicates that one may not evade
the rule against falsely posing as a registered nurse by substituting a vaguer term such as
“professional,” “graduate” or “trained.” A penal provision enacted by the same Legislature in the
same bill as the medical- orders exception similarly declared it “unlawful for any person or
persons not licensed as provided in this chapter to impersonate in any manner or pretend to be a
professional nurse, or to use the title ‘ registered nurse, ’ the letters ‘ R.N., ’ or the words ‘ graduate
nurse, ’ ‘ trained nurse, ’ or any other name, word or symbol in connection with or following his
[or her] name so as to lead another or others to believe that he [or she] is a professional nurse.”
( Id ., former § 2796, added by Stats. 1939, ch. 807, § 2, p. 2356; see Bus. & Prof. Code, § 2796
[current version, addin g “nurse anesthetist” to the list of titles one may not falsely assume].) The
order in which the bill ’ s provisions were drafted suggests the Assembly looked to the penal
provision, and even borrowed some of its terms, in drafting the floor amendment that added the
medical-orders exception. (Compare Assem. Bill No. 620 (1939 Reg. Sess.) § 2, p. 11, as
introduced Jan. 13, 1939 [adding Bus. & Prof. Code, § 2796], with Assem. J. (1939) p. 515 [floor
amend. of Mar. 13, 1939, adding Bus. & Prof. Code, § 2727, subd. (e)].)
The broader statutory context provides additional evidence supporting our conclusion.
The same section of the NPA that contains the medical-orders exception (Bus. & Prof. Code, §
2727, subd. (e)) also creates a narrower exception covering “[i]ncidental car e of the sick by
domestic servants or by persons primarily employed as housekeepers as long as they do not
practice nursing within the meaning of this chapter .” ( Id ., subd. (b), italics added.) Read in the
context of the whole statute, the italicized language expresses the thought that domestic servants
and housekeepers caring for sick persons may not perform nursing functions, without regard to
BP 2006 – Provision of Healthcare Services
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Desert Mountain Special Education Local Plan Area (DMSELPA) (rev. 11/16)
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