A Dundee nurse who left a foetus in a fridge at Ninewells Hospital has been suspended for 12 months.
Grace MacKenzie, who resigned from her post in the gynaecology unit, was found guilty of a lack of competence by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC).
She was short of basic nursing skills in administering drugs, preparing patients for going to theatre and following the established system for sending foetal remains to the mortuary.
She received fortnightly meetings with a mentor to address her deficiencies, but she continued to show poor performance and failed to acknowledge her responsibility and accountability as a registered nurse.
Her standard of practise was unacceptable and amounted to a lack of competence, the NMC said in their judgment.
Although she has been suspended from working as a nurse for 12 months, an interim suspension order lasting 18 months will be imposed if she decides to appeal.
MacKenzie, who did not attend the hearing in Edinburgh, was charged in connection with events surrounding her employment at Ninewells Hospital as a staff nurse in ward 36, a women and children gynaecology ward.
She qualified as a staff nurse in September 2005 and began at the hospital later that month, initially in the Nairn Suite, a dedicated ward for the management of early pregnancy problems including terminations and miscarriages.
After a spell in ward 15 she began working on ward 36, by which time she had been qualified for almost a year.
During 2007 she was involved in a number of medication errors that resulted in informal and formal action.
She was placed on the capability programme, but at the first review she was not achieving significant improvement and was still involved in incidents related to medication errors and professional misbehaviour and conduct.
She admitted the first charge that on January 20 or 21 2007 she did not give a patient her prescribed drug.
She was found guilty that on or around February 14 2009 she indicated a patient with a molar pregnancy where the foetus does not form properly and the pregnancy has to be terminated was ready for theatre when she was not.
A charge that on or about February 20 2009 she failed to check suction equipment was found proved in part however, the charge that she failed to send a foetus to the mortuary, but left it in the ward fridge was found proved.
It was still in the fridge when the late shift came on duty on February 21.
MacKenzie said she called the ward from the car park after her night shift to tell them the foetus was still in the fridge and this would have been no more than four hours after delivery.
With the late shift coming on at 2pm, the day staff would have left it undelivered for a further seven hours, she stated.
A further charge found proved was that on or around March 5 2009 she administered a drug to a patient even though it was prescribed to be withheld.