I read this story on Yahoo news today and when I first saw the headline I thought the guy was a psycho. But it turns out the murders were actually mercy killings.
Would you help a terminally ill patient die, especially if you felt no one would ever find out what you did? I remember that when this issue came up in medical ethics there was a heated debate about whether it should be more morally acceptable to watch terminally ill patients suffer than to help them end their misery sooner.
I'm curious to know everyone's thoughts about this.
I agree with what was posted earlier too about how the hospitals did not properly check his references & communicate with one another thus allowing him to work in so many differant facillities. Just one more way in which the current nursing shortage has again hurt people. Hospitals are so desperate for nurses they will hire just about anyone. I couldn't believe the amount of disciplinary actions posted in this past letter from the board that involved nurses working without license or with one that had expired quite some time ago....
This really burns me up. I live in and work in the area where this nurse worked. Not all of the patients that he killed were terminally ill. They were recoverable in their illness. For this person to take it upon himself and play God is unacceptable. Yes, there are people out there who are sufferring but it is not our place to make these decisions.
I am a nursing student who just wrote a research paper on this subject. I found interesting statistics in the New England Journal of Medicine. According to a pole conducted in 1996 21% of critical care nurses admitted to participating in some form of euthanasia (no distinction between active vs passive) 7% admitted participating in it over 20 times in thier career. I wrote my paper in support of legalizing assisted suicide and my greatest argument was that it is currently being practiced with no oversight (as we see in the news now). Legalizing would allow for guidelines to be established.
After researching for this paper, I am torn on my personal beliefs. My mother has a brain lesion close to her brain stem that is growing rapidly. She has made it clear that she does not want extrodinary means taken to save her life should it come down to that. She is also a big supporter of assisted suicide and has made very supportive comments regarding this issue recently. This is the reason that I chose to research it. Part of me believes that it is her right to choose how she will die but as I enter a medical profession I am unsure if I would be able to assist someone take thier life.
Guess you know where I stand on this, just by the subject line. I do think it's funny that some of the same points get raised repeatedly, almost as though pple don't always read the posts in the middle....
A nurse is a nurse is a nurse. The gender ID is what my mom used to call "old hat," and she was a nurse who wore one.... (at least back when I was a kid).
Here's the deal, it seems.
Our profession is very clear about what to do in these situations. If the patient wants something less than heroic measures, we have ways of getting them that. If the patient is in pain, we can take care of that too (and we absolutely should).
These pts weren't given pain meds, they were given digoxin. Puhleeze!
This nurse also had multiple jobs all over the area, and was terminated for variations on "what did you do with the rest of the meds?"
Here's my question--if he wasn't "wasting" the leftover meds with another nurse, why wasn't he fired for that? And if he supposedly was, where are those other nurses who witnessed it? And if there weren't any, what about the charge nurses on those shifts where counts and records didn't match up?
Lastly, in the news, it said that there was no centralized location for keeping this kind of info. Actually, there is--it's called the National Practitioner Database, and it houses complaints about health practitioners--I'm gonna bet they won't turn down nurse info.
These murders happened because the system let him get away with it.
A Berks County woman told NBC 10 News that she feared for over a decade that Cullen could have been involved in her aunt's death.
Jones said her aunt, Helen Dean, 91, received an unexpected and unauthorized injection from Cullen and died the same day in September 1993.
"It wasn't on her chart, she wasn't scheduled to have an injection," said Sharon Jones of Mohrsville, Pa.
Cullen ended nearly two years of employment at that hospital in December 1993.
"We all suspected that perhaps it could have been a heart drug. Something that was non-detectible in the bloodstream and in tissue," Jones said.
Cullen was never prosecuted because there was insufficient evidence. Jones got a call from prosecutors Tuesday saying that her aunt's case is being reopened.
This same woman, Mrs. Jones, stated on a radio broadcast that her aunt was not terminally ill, but rather scheduled to be transferred to a step-down unit the following day. Now I have to ask........MERCY killing?
It i is a poor depiction of nursing to label this guy as a "male nurse." The fact is that he used his position as a nurse to carry out his crimes. He has a duty bound by law and ethics to act as a professional nurse which has nothing to do w/ his gender. I think the media tries to make him seem odd or something by perpetuating the false notion that is is strange for a man to be a nurse. True white females are predominant in nursing. I am one myself. I don't think the media would put up a headline like... Asian-American nurse Overdoses Terminal PT's or African_American Doctor Steals Funds from Hospital. In our twisted little PC world, male nurses seem fair game for ridicule as sometimes do certain religions, at least for the time being..
This person, male-female, RN-LPN, old-young is a freak case. Plain and simple. No normal person would do this. I am so upset when I hear about how he was "let go" from several other facilities. Were they afraid of bad press? I am sure that was part of it. Maybe they were afraid of a civil suit or something from this weirdo. I feel so bad for the pt's and their families. True that a lot of them were old and ill anyway, but it was not up to this guy to decide when and how they would die. Terrible that he was allowed to pass from place to place as he did.
I agree this was murder. I think this does not come under the RN scope of responsibilities. Having said that if an authorized doc that I felt comfortable taking orders from gave me an order to administer a death dose I probably would, depending on what I assessed the patient's condition to be. A 90 year old fraile patient with respiratory rate of 50 with an order from a doc would be on my list of maybes.
If you did this with no worries you are, IMHO, skating on thin ice my friend. But it is your risk to take so who am I to say.
One of the most famous nurse vs BNE cases in Texas (Lundsford vs BNE) involved a nurse following a doctor's order to the patient's detriment. A nurse lost her license forever and paid dearly because she followed a doctors' order AND the patient died because of that. The doctor received ZERO reprimand. This was quite a few years back and has been the gold standard here ever since regarding the nurses duty and responsibility to safeguard the patient: even against the doctor. It's a sobering thought. My state's stand on this issue likely has something to do why nursing malpractice insurance rates are so high here....and why nurse lawsuit rates are, I believe, #1 in the country (last I heard which is several years ago.)
Sorry if a bit OT. Legal aspects of nursing decisions are a big interest of mine (as ya'll can no doubt tell...LOL)
I encourage all nurses to attend attorney (better yet RNJD) led seminars in your own state as often as you can, so you know where you stand.
Interesting discussion we're having here by the way, I'm enjoying the dialogue.
Why must the headlines read MALE nurse, and not just nurse???
My point ? If it was a female would they say Female nurse?? Then again why stop here. what is next? white nurse, black nurse, Canadian nurse, Asian nurse. Do I sound bitter- maybe, but my question is are they trying to insinuate something or not- I dont know. But I sure could be interpreted that way.
Why must the headlines read MALE nurse, and not just nurse???
My point ? If it was a female would they say Female nurse?? Then again why stop here. what is next? white nurse, black nurse, Canadian nurse, Asian nurse. Do I sound bitter- maybe, but my question is are they trying to insinuate something or not- I dont know. But I sure could be interpreted that way.
Same reason why headlines will read "female doctor".
The fact is most nurses are still female, so a male nurse is not typical-just as most doctors are male, so a female doctor is not typical. I here pts say female doctor all the time. I don't think people are discriminatory, they are bases there descriptions on facts.
Agreed. We still distinguish between male and female police officers and firemen, er people, as well. Hec, my mom got an award in the '60's for being the 1st female president of public accountants. I never took offense to the fact that it mentioned his gender prior to his profession, but rather connected that most serial killers are men, so the distinction was important, as he is more a serial killer than a nurse in this instance, IMO.
He does need to be tried for murder, as that is what these killings were, however many there actually were. It's not a mercy killing unless it was requested by the patients. I have "reasonable doubt" that was the case.
If you did this with no worries you are, IMHO, skating on thin ice my friend. But it is your risk to take so who am I to say.
One of the most famous nurse vs BNE cases in Texas (Lundsford vs BNE) involved a nurse following a doctor's order to the patient's detriment. A nurse lost her license forever and paid dearly because she followed a doctors' order AND the patient died because of that. The doctor received ZERO reprimand. This was quite a few years back and has been the gold standard here ever since regarding the nurses duty and responsibility to safeguard the patient: even against the doctor. It's a sobering thought. My state's stand on this issue likely has something to do why nursing malpractice insurance rates are so high here....and why nurse lawsuit rates are, I believe, #1 in the country (last I heard which is several years ago.)
Sorry if a bit OT. Legal aspects of nursing decisions are a big interest of mine (as ya'll can no doubt tell...LOL)
I encourage all nurses to attend attorney (better yet RNJD) led seminars in your own state as often as you can, so you know where you stand.
Interesting discussion we're having here by the way, I'm enjoying the dialogue.
I agree we are skating on thin ice. I've been to a couple of seminars myself and find them interesting and eye opening.
As an ICU you nurse perhaps you can relate to the "death dose" this way (as most of the end of life comfort measures are given on the medical units or at home). (The death dose is a horrible expression anyway, as that's not what it is.) When you extubate a patient during withdrawal of care and that patient dies within minutes. You knew the patient was going to die, the family wanted the patient extubated, the doctor ordered it. You, the chaplin and resp. therapist extubate the patient. Do you feel you are killing that patient?
TitaniaSidhe
190 Posts
I agree with what was posted earlier too about how the hospitals did not properly check his references & communicate with one another thus allowing him to work in so many differant facillities. Just one more way in which the current nursing shortage has again hurt people. Hospitals are so desperate for nurses they will hire just about anyone. I couldn't believe the amount of disciplinary actions posted in this past letter from the board that involved nurses working without license or with one that had expired quite some time ago....