In Arizona licensed Health Care workers have a duty to report a misdemeanor DUI arrest within ten days of the date of arrest. This presents some special problems for our clients.  First, it applies not only to doctors and nurses, but in Arizona this law applies as well to dental hygienists, veterinary technicians, athletic trainers, massage therapists, pharmacy technicians, respiratory therapists and dozens of others. The chart below shows who this includes.

Second, even if you are not convicted, most Arizona health care licensing boards will start an investigation of you while your DUI is still pending in court.  You are usually asked to send them the police reports, and meet with them.    The Boards have the power to take your license away, although that doesn’t usually happen for first offense misdemeanor DUI, if everything else is good, and you’ve got no other licensing issues.  But they can and will, do other things like have you get a separate evaluation, put you on probation, ensure that you notify your employer.  So it’s very important for those of you who have Arizona Health Care provider licenses to deal with this problem head on.  We get lots of calls on these.