Patient Safety and Hospital Oversight

Circuit Judge Dawn Nichols has sentenced 29‑year‑old Autumn Bardisa of Palm Coast, Florida, to five years of probation and 50 hours of community service — but no jail time — after she pleaded no contest to unlicensed practice of healthcare and fraudulent use of identification for posing as a nurse and treating more than 4,400 AdventHealth patients between June 2024 and January 2025. Investigators say Bardisa never held a valid nursing license during that period, instead using the license number of another nurse with the same first name, initially entering the hospital under an “education first” designation meant for graduates who have not yet passed boards, then falsely claiming she had passed and supplying the stolen license number. When coworkers and hospital officials pressed her to reconcile inconsistencies, she claimed a recent name change after marriage but never produced documentation, yet was still promoted in January 2025 before a colleague’s credential check uncovered that she only had an expired certified nursing assistant license, sparking a multi‑agency probe. As part of the plea deal, Bardisa forfeited a nursing license she obtained after her arrest to the Florida Department of Health and is barred from working in the medical field during probation, and she must write a letter of apology to the nurse whose identity she used. Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly criticized the outcome, saying her scheme "put patients at risk" and undermined trust in the nursing profession, with early online reaction highlighting anger over the lenient sentence and renewed concern about how a major hospital’s vetting system failed to catch the fraud sooner.