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RaDonda Vaught made at least 10 mistakes in fatal Vanderbilt medication error, prosecutors say

This article outlines details of the prosecution's case. I am curious as to how the defense plans to pin this on the hospital?

I still can't fathom why the Tennessee BON didn't see fit to require at least some reeducation of Ms Vaught!

Specializes in Mental Health, Gerontology, Palliative.
On 4/7/2019 at 2:30 AM, Emergent said:

A recent update from her Go Fund Me:

I have chronic eye strain after reading that?

She really doesnt seem to think shes done anything wrong.

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Specializes in Mental Health, Gerontology, Palliative.
On 4/7/2019 at 10:11 AM, Dsmcrn said:

So you can pick them apart??? Forget it!

You are making the claim, the burden of proof is on you

By the way, expecting someone to be held responsible for a catastropic mistake that led to a patient suffocating while being fully conscious does not a hater make

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Specializes in Mental Health, Gerontology, Palliative.
On 4/8/2019 at 4:48 AM, Emergent said:

Whether her memory got fuzzy or not, it boils down to, the only way to get her away from the bedside was to prosecute her since all other agencies failed.

I would have been satisfied with a BON discipline and monitoring personally. Her practice was too far below standards to get let her go on with no consequences other than losing her job.

Me too

I am gob smacked that the Tennessee board of nursing found no case to answer

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Specializes in NICU/Neonatal transport.
3 hours ago, MunoRN said:

I get that, is the issue with acknowledging that this could have also been avoided on a system and process level that you see it as absolving the nurse of her string of errors?

Because I agree that many if not even most errors are systems issues. But that does not mean every error is. Everything occurred perfectly up to her involvement. If she had used the systems, her involvement would not have killed the patient.

People want to make the system so infallible that it is impossible to make a mistake - that is not going to happen, and if it does, they will get rid of nurses. If there's a system that makes it so fool proof to give a medication that you do not have to be competent or careful or educated to administer it, then non licensed personnel can administer meds.

1 hour ago, wondern said:

Thanks, MunoRN for also sharing what happened in another radiology department where 2 deaths happened in a year over medication administration issues. It takes guts to share some of the stuff we'd really rather not remember. Thank you.

All of the environmental issues need to be addressed as well. What led up to it? How could it have been prevented? Is there anything we can do to improve?

Wuzzie, if radiology wasn't short-staffed why was she called down from NeuroICU? Because radiology didn't have the staff to monitor her? That to me is short staffed. It was in the Radiology department, not in the well-staffed Neuro ICU, where the incident occurred, correct? That's my point. Why wasn't she up there 'helping all', taking the time to show her orientee how she was reconstituting the accidental wrong med and all. Instead the orientee distracted her during the process. Maybe that's a difference in a 2 year experience nurse and one that is more of a true resource person. To me at 2 years I'm still learning all kinds of new things. Wouldn't you be explaining what you were doing to your orientee?

Also, not an excuse but just a fact...the Versed bottle pictured has a lot more red on the label than the paralytic. I realize reading is a requirement as well.

I like the idea of having it in a kit like someone else posted they do in their ER, not that that absolves us from reading but still anything to help prevent more accidents. Do y'all like that idea?

Radiology is not intended to have staffing to monitor patients being sedated. Any monitoring should come from the unit the patient originated from. I send a patient to MRI that is going to get sedation, I am responsible for making sure someone is with them. That is not MRI's job. The helper is designed exactly for this kind of thing, your patient has to go off-unit and may need meds or monitored, so instead of someone else watching your other patient and having a larger assignment while you're gone, you stay with your assignment, the helper goes down with the traveling patient. It's an extra set of hands.

The kit for RSI is not viable in the ICU, we need paralytics for more than just intubation. It's also used for vent asynchrony and pulm hypertensive crises, which only need paralytic, not atropine and fentanyl.

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I just keep going back in my mind to what that poor patient must have suffered. I can't even imagine how terrifying it must be to suffocate slowly without even being able to cry out. It doesn't seem to me that RV has as much regret for killing someone as she does for what she's going through as a result of a series of incredibly BAD decisions. I will never understand why Tennessee didn't pull her license, and why she was able to just move on to another job. And damned if I get why she has such a legion of supporters...you'd think other nurses would want her held accountable, because when something like this happens it makes us look bad in the eyes of the public, which continues to call us the "most trusted professionals".

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Specializes in Mental Health, Gerontology, Palliative.
5 hours ago, wondern said:

Stop blaming the nurse for the entire thing! She feels bad enough I'm sure.

....

Not blame the nurse who bypassed multiple safety checks and ignored the basic checks of medication administration

Not blame a nurse Gave a medication that killed a patient, BTW, i know I bang on about this) the patient slowly suffocated to death while being fully conscious

Who else is to blame? Her actions directly caused a patient to suffer a horrible terrifying death while being aware, right until the end

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Specializes in Mental Health, Gerontology, Palliative.
7 minutes ago, VivaLasViejas said:

I just keep going back in my mind to what that poor patient must have suffered. I can't even imagine how terrifying it must be to suffocate slowly without even being able to cry out. It doesn't seem to me that RV has as much regret for killing someone as she does for what she's going through as a result of a series of incredibly BAD decisions. I will never understand why Tennessee didn't pull her license, and why she was able to just move on to another job. And damned if I get why she has such a legion of supporters...you'd think other nurses would want her held accountable, because when something like this happens it makes us look bad in the eyes of the public, which continues to call us the "most trusted professionals".

Thats what does my head in

I wonder if one of the reasons why the family was not more upset was because they didnt fully understand what being given vercuronium did to there loved one

If that was my family member, id want their head, I'm not nearly as nice and forgiving however

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23 minutes ago, LilPeanut said:

"Radiology is not intended to have staffing to monitor patients being sedated. Any monitoring should come from the unit the patient originated from..."

What??? That makes no sense at all! Radiology is intended to take xrays and take care of patients in their dept. including sedated patients. A radiology dept. as big as Vanderbilts needs their own nurses! Every floor nurse cannot accompany her pt. to radiology. Give me a break!

To even say that after all we've just heard makes no sense. Things need to change there.

It's actually the easy way out to hold solely accountable only the nurse even if she was the one giving the med. There were other contributing factors that could be improved certainly. How can anyone deny that?

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Specializes in NICU/Neonatal transport.
11 minutes ago, wondern said:

What??? That makes no sense at all! Radiology is intended to take xrays and take care of patients in their dept. including sedated patients. A radiology dept. as big as Vanderbilts needs their own nurses! Every floor nurse cannot accompany her pt. to radiology. Give me a break!

To even say that after all we've just heard makes no sense. Things need to change there.

It's actually the easy way out to hold solely accountable only the nurse even if she was the one giving the med. There were other contributing factors that could be improved certainly. How can anyone deny that?

Why is that crazy? The numbers of patients fluctuate greatly in radiology and it makes far more sense to staff from the originating unit, who presumably knows the patient better and has more experience with the acuity than a "radiology nurse".

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If you have hundreds of patients go through your department daily it makes excellent sense.

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It's probably common sense actually!

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Hopefully even an anesthesiologist or small team of anesthesiologists on hand as well!

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