Another Tragedy at Vanderbilt

Nurses General Nursing

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Vanderbilt is having a rough patch. First the lethal Vecuronium error and now a "never event".

A woman at Vanderbilt undergoing kidney surgery suffered a wrong-site surgery to her kidney- a "never event". She filed a 25 million dollar lawsuit due to extensive damage and is now dependent on dialysis. Neither here nor there, but one news report said the woman was a certified nursing assistant (CNA).

In the first case, the RN was arrested and charged with reckless homicide. Should the surgeon likewise be arrested and face charges?

11 minutes ago, Wuzzie said:

I like the thumbs up if I agree because there isn’t any sense in re-stating something I agree with.

I’ve given you thumbs up before. Shall I remove them?

For me thumbs and thumbs down are really not that serious.

Just now, Workitinurfava said:

For me thumbs and thumbs down are really not that serious. 

I’ll keep that in mind.

Just now, Wuzzie said:

I’ll keep that in mind.

I can't control or want to control how people rate me.

6 minutes ago, Workitinurfava said:

I can't control or want to control how people rate me.

Well, of course.

And with that I’ll drop this line of discussion as I don’t want to continue derailing this thread.

2 minutes ago, Wuzzie said:

Well, of course.

Bwahh don't take away my thumbs up, lol. Goodnight!

1 Votes
Just now, Workitinurfava said:

Bwahh don't take away my thumbs up, lol.

?

Specializes in Psych.
4 hours ago, MunoRN said:

To clarify the charges against RV, she isn't actually being charged for making a med error, she's being charged for using the override function of the pyxis, which at least at place I've worked is far from qualifying as negligence, it's often an expected part of nursing practice in many situations. 

But that isn’t the only thing she did that resulted in the patient’s death. That was just one in a number of things. The CMS report is quite disturbing.

1 Votes

Sorry if I've repeated anyones post, but from what I understand this resident is still employed at the hospital. The nurse was terminated. Wow.

I don't believe the nurse should be among criminal status such as murderers and thieves. Everyone to some extent has cut corners, maybe not safety violations but when they are short staffed or an emergency, someone has to have over road some policy.

When something goes wrong, like the surgery for instance, people tend to blame then nurses, why didnt the nurse catch this...better question, how did this patient still make it to the OR and allowed to continue the procedure and no one catch this. If the time out procedure was done, but everything in patients chart signaled the wrong site, then the time out was done correctly and allowed procedure to continue

When I had a knee operation the surgeon signed the correct knee with a big sharpie and then had a witness as I signed the correct knee. Then they gave me ketamine and it was amazing.

"Never event" indeed. Buy a damn sharpie.

4 Votes
4 hours ago, Luchador said:

When I had a knee operation the surgeon signed the correct knee with a big sharpie and then had a witness as I signed the correct knee. Then they gave me ketamine and it was amazing.

"Never event" indeed. Buy a damn sharpie.

Ya know...it is really sad that medicine has come to this. I worked as an OR nurse for years. Mostly CVOR but some ortho prior to that. Tons of residents doing the surgeries and never had a problem. I scrubbed many of those cases and learned how to work a drill and pick out the correct screws...it was a team effort as we checked each other.

1 Votes
Specializes in Critical Care.
13 hours ago, KJoRN81 said:

But that isn’t the only thing she did that resulted in the patient’s death. That was just one in a number of things. The CMS report is quite disturbing.

RV failed to check the medication against the order when pulling the med, the physician in this incident failed to check that their signature/initials over the actual site against the imaging/dx that defined the target kidney (or failed to sign the site at all). RV then again failed to check the label just prior to administering just as the physician in this incident failed to confirm the site just prior to the procedure.

The details are of the two safety mechanism failures differ, but I don't see how they are two completely different levels of failure.

1 Votes
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