How honest should I be about illness in job interview

[Guest guest]

Hello to all. I'm a nurse and I lost my job last November cause I

was in the hospital with pancreatitis. I have pancreas divisum and

my doctors think i'm developing chronic pancreatitis. I'm due to go

to Toronto, Canada sometime over the next month to try stenting to

fix the divisum. I just received an email for an interiew for a

part time job with the same company that fired me in the fall. It's

a different area than what I was working. I used to Case coordinate

in the community and this is case coordinating in the hospital.

What I want to know is how much should I disclose about my illness

in the interview? I'm really worried if I start saying pancreatitis

they won't even consider me for the job. I feel I should be honest

that I was fired in the fall for hospitilization because they are

gonna find out when they review my records with the company. But I

really don't know how much to disclose about my illness now. There

is a chance (which i'm praying for) that if the stenting works it'll

stop the pancreatitis attacks. I'm just really confused about what

to say in an interview. My husband is really scared about me

working cause i'm still quite ill, but I feel I need to get a little

bit of my life back. Thank you so much for any suggestions. Jen

[Guest guest]

There are a few rules regarding employement. Did the employer say

that the job is contigent apon passing a physical? Did they have you

read the job description, indicating what the physical aspects of

the job entail? Did they make you sign a document that you have read

the essential functions of the job? Such as for a nurse in a long-

term care setting or acute care they would list the amount of pounds

required for lifting, long hours on your feet, bending, twisting,

stooping or squatting. Are they going to require a physical exam or

a health history questionairre? Alot of employers in a health care

setting at least require a Occupational Health Nurse to do a health

history review that has a form with multiple health history

questions along with a two step PPD, verification of 2 doses of MMR

or physician diagnosed disease, and a vericella zoster titer or

history of chicken pox and a urine drug profile. If a person is not

quite truthful on a health history questionairre, and it is found to

not be accurate, the employer can decide not to continue

employement, or they can deny payment( if the employee had health

care insurance with the employer) for anything that had to do the

issues that were not quite truthful. For example if an employee

denied sucical tendencies on a health history questionairre and then

attempted suicide and was successful and the employer found out (

through medical records) that the person had previously attempted

sucide and was under a physicans care for this and did not disclose

this at the time of employement 1. They could refuse to pay any life

insurance benefits that were apart of employement. 2. They could

refuse to pay any medical expenses that are associated with the care

of the individual during the episode. ( If the person family found

them after the attempt and had them brought to the ER and the ER

physician coded the patient. The employers insurance carrier could

refuse to pay these claims because the person was not truthful on

their health history review. I know this has been long and drawn out

examples of these senerios, but I have seen them happen before and I

think that honesty is the best policy when it comes to an employee

and employer relationship. Trust me they will find out, they always

do.

Atwell LPN