Nurse Charged With Homicide

[Nurse Beth]

Radonda Vaught, a 35 year old nurse who worked at the University of Vanderbilt University Medical Center, has been indicted on charges of reckless homicide. Read Nurse Gives Lethal Dose of Vecuronium

Radonda is the nurse who mistakenly gave Vecuronium (a paralytic) to a patient instead of Versed. The patient died.

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

1 hour ago, Jonathan Bartels said:

Yes. A serious mistake. "Let her off the hook"?? How about support her in both recovering from such a mistake and mitigating it never happens again? You talk of suffering serious consequences? I think knowing what happened is severe enough...unless she has psychopathic tendencies...I am sure she suffers each and every day. You speak of justice? I think justice is creating a system that ensures all changes are made to decrease the potential for this to happen again. I hold her Health system to the standards you apply to the individual. That is where severe penalties should be applied. In the eyes of the court, Corporations are and can be considered individual entities. That is where I would aim my 'Sword of Justice'.

Well said. I think she's already suffered plenty. There is no WAY to "let her off the hook," because I doubt she has forgiven herself. Lets support her, and create a system where this kind of mistake can't happen again.

[HomeBound]

1 minute ago, Ruby Vee said:

Whoa! What a horrible thing to say.

Ruby, I love your comments---but here is a caveat to your suggestions.

We already do have all the safeguards in place to "make sure this never happens again" and it fell to her, as a professional, to make use of those safeguards. She chose to ignore them.

[Horseshoe, BSN, RN]

1 hour ago, Susie2310 said:

Some health care professionals like to think that when they provide negligent care that harms or kills patients they will magically face no consequences - that there will be a "good fairy" to spirit away their errors that are due to negligence (and some facilities do hide errors and don't report them, just as some health care professionals don't report their errors). Medical/nursing errors have been shown to harm and kill large numbers of patients yearly, yet some nurses want all this to be brushed under the carpet and for there to be no criminal, civil, social, or employment consequences.

I'm wondering who on here has advocated "NO" consequences for this nurse. Some prefer remediation, some advocate for license revocation/civil penalties, and others are fine for her to go to jail. Even the most generous have accepted that the nurse needs SOME kind of consequence. Some feel the facility bears no culpability whatsoever, some give them 50/50, and a few feel that bear the majority of the blame. Still, I haven't seen any, much less "some" who simply want it to go away.

I sure could have missed a post, I guess. Or maybe when you refer to these "some nurses" you are referring to others in society.

[lindahartford]

This is a terrible thing to a human being. There's that old joke about doctors burying their mistakes. But a woman made a mistake and the lawyers want to burn her at the stake.

After 50 years of nursing, I sometimes worry if I ever made a serious error that I'm not even aware of. For this nurse to be treated like this is almost unthinkable.

Think there is a nursing shortage now? Where is the responsibility of administrators putting nurses in over their heads with impossible hours and work loads? Policeman shoot the wrong people and get off. We are both in jobs where peoples lives are in the balance. We all do our best but sometimes that is just not enough.

[Horseshoe, BSN, RN]

1 hour ago, Jonathan Bartels said:

Yes. A serious mistake. "Let her off the hook"?? How about support her in both recovering from such a mistake and mitigating it never happens again? You talk of suffering serious consequences? I think knowing what happened is severe enough...unless she has psychopathic tendencies...I am sure she suffers each and every day. You speak of justice? I think justice is creating a system that ensures all changes are made to decrease the potential for this to happen again. I hold her Health system to the standards you apply to the individual. That is where severe penalties should be applied. In the eyes of the court, Corporations are and can be considered individual entities. That is where I would aim my 'Sword of Justice'.

Your points are valid. I don't happen to agree with them, but on the other hand, I don't go so far as to advocate that she go to jail or even be charged criminally.

I also don't think she necessarily "shares" culpability with the hospital. She bears full responsibility for the mistakes she made. But apparently the hospital must take SOME ownership for providing an incompetent nurse with the ability to make a mistake of this magnitude if they are making changes that would make it unlikely or impossible for a series of mistakes like this to go unchecked or unchallenged or even remotely possible. There are always going to be incompetent practitioners around who pass the tests and on paper appear to be competent, but who will nonetheless take short cuts or bypass important security measures. This is a fact, so it behooves facilities to make shortcuts or the bypassing of important security measures impossible to do without a superior co-signer or something of that nature. Many experienced nurses posted on the other thread numerous measures that they believe could have put in a wrench in this person's ability to complete a deadly series of interventions.

As to the family "forgiving" her: that's good and is their prerogative. However, it has nothing to do with whether or not she can or should be charged. Prosecutors, not families, are the ones who hold the power over whether or not to charge a person with a crime (though sometimes prosecutors will speak to the family in order to get their feelings on plea deals, their willingness to cooperate as witnesses, etc.).

[OwlNP]

So many interesting points being made here. I don’t know if I feel she should be charged. I have been going back and forth, but I really have a hard time with the fact that she had to reconstitute the med and that this did not cause her to pause and reassess the situation. I think losing her license is probably enough punishment and I am sure she is punishing herself enough. Such a tough situation. However, I also do think that the hospital should be held culpable for their responsibility in the error, such as poor training, under staffing and the override process of medications.

[Horseshoe, BSN, RN]

3 hours ago, Ron Wallace said:

content removed by staff

IMO it's not her math that is the major problem here. It's pulling the WRONG DRUG ENTIRELY right out of the gate, being satisfied that it's okay because the first three letters are the same, and not pausing to read the box that says it's a paralytic vs. a benzo.

[Sour Lemon]

1 hour ago, DowntheRiver said:

Just a thought, but I wonder if that nurse reads this forum...

...and would it change anyone's mind about her if they "knew" more of her personality?

[Lololololoollkkgddfuih]

9 minutes ago, Sour Lemon said:

...and would it change anyone's mind about her if they "knew" more of her personality?

She clearly can’t read she selected the wrong drug entirely.

“Horseshoe” TOLD ME SHE CANT READ.

[Sour Lemon]

I like that this is an anonymous site, but it does get a bit annoying when people use obviously fake credentials.

[maelstrom143]

This is the reason I always tell my patients that no, I will not hurry. I will take my time and ensure I know what I am doing. I will review meds I do not know, and educate them. If I get your pancakes wrong, you will live. If I get your meds wrong, there's always the chance of catastrophic failure. Don't hurry me. If you do, I'll slow down even more because I did not wake up planning to kill anyone this morning and it is too easy to make a mistake due to being pressured.

My heart goes out to everyone involved. This is a perfect storm and the ones who should be penalized for not having safety protocols in place, the facility, will not be and that is beyond wrong.

[rudecat]

Any nurse who says she's never made a med error is lying. We've all heard this. Its unfortunate that this happened however I cannot see any malice . It was a tragic mistake and no i do not think that she should be charged with homicide and or if this is the only flaw against her then her College should look to help her not punish her