A sobering story-------

NanikRN · Nov 28, 2015

I don't know if the desire to punish one nurse for his or her actions outweighs the fact that it is well-established by research that treating errors in a punitive fashion causes nurses to misreport and underreport their own errors?
If OP's link is right about her licensing stipulations and not being able to ever pass meds without another nurse present -- those are WAY worse then your usual monitoring contract stips and would have made it impossible to work in most of the environments that are monitoring program friendly.

"A storm of media attention followed news of the error, spurring state nursing commission officials to open an investigation into whether Hiatt's license should be revoked. Ultimately, the agency imposed sanctions instead, including a $3,000 fine, 80 hours of new coursework on medication administration and four years of probation in which any supervisor would be required to report on Hiatt's work every 90 days."

Info from 2nd article posted above with more factual than opinion of first

Nurse's suicide highlights twin tragedies of errors - Health - Health care | NBC

Nurse's suicide highlights twin tragedies of errors - Health - Health care | NBC News

dudette10, MSN, RN · Nov 28, 2015

Please do not put words into my mouth. I asked "How do family members usually feel in these kinds of situations?" in response to Brownbook's comment about he/she thought medication errors should be dealt with. I have made no assumptions whatsoever about family members. My reply was a general one that encompassed serious errors made by nurses that result in patient deaths.

Your response is disingenuous, and you are back peddling in light of situations in which families did not want to hang the nurses.

cindy_rn456 · Nov 28, 2015

The article states that the baby's family asked that Hiatt not care for the child anymore, but that no one should be severely punished for it. The Quaids didn't want the nurse who overdosed one of their twins on heparin to be burned at the stake either.
You assume that all families want the severest punishment possible. That is just not the case.
I am aware of a case in which a nurse not only willingly and repeatedly did not give medications, but also documented that she did give them, then she lied to the patient about it. It was eventually discovered, and the nurse was going to get a warning, but the family insisted on firing, which did happen. However, the family purposely did not report to the BON, and strangely enough, neither did the facility. This is just another example of families who are not out for blood, although I tried to convince the family that the nurse did deserve to have her license permanently revoked.
So you've got willfull actions vs accidents. Willful acts and omissions do indeed happen. We should save our severest punishments for those nurses.

Thank you for this! Everyone isn't out for blood when nurses make mistakes because I believe that the public knows that nurses want to heal and help, not hurt people. The family has the right to request another nurse to care for their child. It is also important to note that the child didn't die from the overdose, although his/her condition was exacerbated by it.

Susie2310 · Nov 28, 2015

Your response is disingenuous, and you are back peddling in light of situations in which families did not want to hang the nurses.

dudette, read my posts again, and comprehend what is written, just that, not your ideas about what I am thinking/saying. I have made no reference to any particular families. Please control your imagination and read my actual words.

Horseshoe, BSN, RN · Nov 28, 2015

I am aware of a case in which a nurse not only willingly and repeatedly did not give medications, but also documented that she did give them, then she lied to the patient about it. It was eventually discovered, and the nurse was going to get a warning, but the family insisted on firing, which did happen. However, the family purposely did not report to the BON, and strangely enough, neither did the facility. This is just another example of families who are not out for blood, although I tried to convince the family that the nurse did deserve to have her license permanently revoked.

I agree with you. What the family wanted should have had no bearing whatsoever on whether or not that nurse was reported to the BON. She is a dangerous nurse, and the public has the right to be protected from nurses like that. The facility should have reported that.

SMH...

cindy_rn456 · Nov 28, 2015

I don't know if the desire to punish one nurse for his or her actions outweighs the fact that it is well-established by research that treating errors in a punitive fashion causes nurses to misreport and underreport their own errors?
If OP's link is right about her licensing stipulations and not being able to ever pass meds without another nurse present -- those are WAY worse then your usual monitoring contract stips and would have made it impossible to work in most of the environments that are monitoring program friendly.

Exactly! And what hospital or LTC facility for that matter has time to have nurses supervising other nurses on med pass everytime she gives meds??? It's obsurd and not realistic at all. Nurses and supervisors have their own meds to pass and other paperwork to worry about

ayla2004, ASN, RN · Nov 28, 2015

I feel sorry for the anguish this lady went through and for the child's parents. I recently was preparing a med and fortunately realises the dose I was preparing seemed high as on re checking I realised had read it wrong and could have given ten times the dose. it was 9 hours into a shift, we use epmar so the order was clear just my not seeing a decimal place. the right dose was drawn up and given.

cindy_rn456 · Nov 28, 2015

I agree with you. What the family wanted should have had no bearing whatsoever on whether or not that nurse was reported to the BON. She is a dangerous nurse, and the public has the right to be protected from nurses like that. The facility should have reported that.
SMH...

Absolutely agree! The nurses who go around breaking the rules on a routine basis are the ones who go unreported not caring for patient safety, but ironically Haitt made one mistake that resulted in UNINTENTIONAL injury and she gets canned so the hospital could save their ass from the media scrutiny??

LPNtoRNin2016OH, LPN · Nov 28, 2015

As a nurse and a mother I can see both sides of this and there isn't a good answer or solution for either side. If it were my child this happened too......a dose 10x that was supposed to be given...I would be inclined to want to see the nurse held responsible to whatever extent this mistake may call for.

But as a nurse, who has made mistakes, and while thankfully no harm came of it, and was devestated by it even so, I feel for the nurse. I think I would want to know exactly what was going on in her working enviroment that day. Were they understaffed and she had more patients than what she was used too or over what was deemed to be safe? If that were the case then I would feel the hospital was the main responsible party instead of soley resting all the blame on this nuse.

If she had a safe amount of patients, her normal load, and she gave the wrong dose because she was chatting with a co-worker? Admittedly I would have a hard time as a mother feeling compassion for her in this situation if I was the mother of this child.

That said, I do feel for this nurse and her family. I can't imagine the guilt she must have felt. It's similar to car accidents in which one person, not impaired, ran a red light a little too late and smashed into a car killing another preson. Of course it wasn't intentional but a loss of life occured and the driver must be held responsible for their error in judgement regardless of whether or not they had been a safe drive their whole life before the incident.

Just a crappy situation all around this one.

Horseshoe, BSN, RN · Nov 28, 2015

I have made a med error before, and I was appalled and devastated. My patient suffered absolutely zero harm, but it really shook me to the core. I can only imagine the agony this nurse went through as a result of this incident.

LPNtoRNin2016OH, LPN · Nov 28, 2015

Question: Do they not have a second nurse check all medications that have to be drawn up in all peds? I ask because when my then 4 month old was hospitilzed for RSV last March, he was given meds to open up his airways. One nurse calculated outside the room, drew up, and then a second nurse came in to verify it was correct. First nurse then administered. He only recieved that medication once but I saw the same thing when they gave another baby we were roomed in with a med and both double checked....

dirtyhippiegirl, BSN, RN · Nov 28, 2015

"A storm of media attention followed news of the error, spurring state nursing commission officials to open an investigation into whether Hiatt's license should be revoked. Ultimately, the agency imposed sanctions instead, including a $3,000 fine, 80 hours of new coursework on medication administration and four years of probation in which any supervisor would be required to report on Hiatt's work every 90 days."
Info from 2nd article posted above with more factual than opinion of first

Which would be more in line with standard stipulations although another article mentions her taking classes for flight nursing and being PALS/ACLS certified which were obviously the types of jobs that wouldn't happen.

On the other hand, if you Google the nurse's name, the third article listed talks about surgeons doing surgery on the wrong patients without any medical board repercussions. So idk.