I have been a registered nurse for 17 years and I have extensive experience in many different fields. My name specialty was the ER. I resigned in Lou of being terminated from my position at a hospital seven years ago because of conflicts with a new trauma director, who later was terminated for stealing hospital information and escorted out of the building. This person fired several excellent registered nurses from minuscule reasons. When I called to ask why I had been blacklisted I received two different stories. One was "misconduct", and one was "progressive disciplinary action". I spoke with the medical director of the emergency room in that particular hospital and told her that I wanted my job back. This was a casual passing in the hallway, and she told me to go directly to the emergency department and speak with the nurse manager because they she wanted me back. I went to the president of the hospital as well as the chief nursing officer, the chief nursing officer refused to take me off of the do not rehire list. The second occurrence was following a hip replacement surgery in the hospital lacking to attempt to find light duty when my FMLA expired and I was terminated. This was a violation of the labor laws and I brought a lawsuit against that hospital and won, but part of the agreement was that I was never allowed to apply there again nor was I allowed to make disparaging remarks. I believe that when perspective employers call these two hospitals that disparaging things are being said about me. I have excellent references, one of which called me following an interview that went very well and said "they really liked you and they want to hire you." Several of the people in the interview were aware of the what was happening with this trauma director at that hospital and had left because of it. But the following week I got a phone call saying they had chosen another candidate. I live in a very small state and I'm having a lot of difficulty finding a job after a year off for hip revision surgery, as the initial hip replacement was botched. I am an excellent registered nurse, I have always received many complements from the patients I have taken care of, and have even had a patient contact me outside of The hospital to thank me and to tell me I was the reason she was going to nursing school. I have tried to the best of my ability to explain the situations without seeming like I was bad mouthing the hospitals, and I have tried saying nothing. Can anyone help me? I'm not sure how else to handle this and I am in desperate need of work in order to support my family.