Nurses Call the Governor of Tennessee

Nurses General Nursing

Published

The state of TN is prosecuting nurse Radonda Vaught for reckless homicide. You can contact the Governor or DA to let him know what you think about this choice.

Governor Bill Lee

1st Floor, State Capitol
Nashville, TN 37243
(615) 741-2001
email: [email protected]

District Attorney Glenn Funk

Just now, HomeBound said:

So if I commit a crime, like accidentally running over someone, at night on my way to get Cheetos at the 7-11, because I have bad night vision....I don't deserve to be charged with involuntary manslaughter or reckless homicide? (because I know I have bad night vision, and I chose to drive at night, to do something that could have waited until the next day)

She's being charged with reckless homicide. Unintentional result from a reckless act.

You weren't working, totally different situation. You knew you had bad night vision.

0 Votes
1 minute ago, Workitinurfava said:

You weren't working, totally different situation. You knew you had bad night vision.

Can you please explain why working vs not working makes a difference?

5 Votes
Specializes in ED, ICU, Prehospital.
Just now, Workitinurfava said:

You weren't working, totally different situation. You knew you had bad night vision.

Exactly. She knew she had to perform the 5 rights. She knew she was supposed to check the order. She knew she was supposed to read the label. She knew she was supposed to monitor sedated patients (It's on the CCRN exam, btw, which she studied for and passed)

She knew these things, and the result was a death by her reckless actions.

I knew I had bad night vision, and the result was a death by my reckless actions.

5 Votes
Specializes in Psych, Corrections, Med-Surg, Ambulatory.
5 minutes ago, Workitinurfava said:

You weren't working, totally different situation. You knew you had bad night vision.

I don't think Tennessee law makes that distinction.

0 Votes
Specializes in ED, ICU, Prehospital.
Just now, TriciaJ said:

I don't think Tennessee law makes that distinction.

I am not aware of anybody who does, unless you are on company time outside of the place where you are working, and you commit a crime or are injured in the commission of a crime.

I was trying, gently, to guide her to understand that just because I didn't intend on killing someone, my bad judgement took your Mom or your Husband or your child away from you. For Cheetos. When I knew I could wait, and I knew I could not drive safely at night.

These are judgement calls. Maturity, ethics, impulse control, fear of consequences (which, by the way, even though this sounds like a horrible thing--fear of consequences is what keeps some people from murdering you in your bed)---all of these things tie up nicely to help us make good decisions.

Someone who could do this thing---that RV did---and get fired, collude with to keep it quiet, walk into another facility AND NOT TELL THEM or the TBON about it---and work for another year----and then it has to come out FROM SOMEONE ELSE?

Yeah. I'd say there are some serious ethical, moral, impulse control, lack of fear of consequences (which, by the way, is a hallmark of a sociopath and some would even equate it to psychopathic behavior)

https://academic.oup.com/scan/article/5/1/59/1731641

I've known one person like this. You don't know if RaDonda is a pathological liar. You don't know her.

You don't know if she has superficial charm. You don't know her.

You don't know if she's done this before and simply hidden it. You don't know her.

I can go on....ad infinitum (God. I love latin. So precise.) What the glaring truth here is....nobody knows her. It's all speculation---and unless the stance you take is one from factual information that is specific to this case, it's emotion with a smattering of self service.

3 Votes
Specializes in ACNP-BC, Adult Critical Care, Cardiology.
1 hour ago, klone said:

For starters, putting a nurse with only a couple years of experience in the role as "resource nurse."

I will accept that she may not be ready for the responsibility of being a resource nurse whatever that means (since Vanderbilt did not clarify that role in the report). However, the incident involved an act of medication administration that is performed by an ICU nurse at her level of experience. My assumption is that she wasn't being asked to perform a procedure that she hasn't been trained to do.

6 Votes
Specializes in OB-Gyn/Primary Care/Ambulatory Leadership.
39 minutes ago, Workitinurfava said:

This wasn't deliberate, so she doesn't deserve the homicide charge.

A homicide charge does not require deliberateness.

3 Votes
6 minutes ago, HomeBound said:

...unless the stance you take is one from factual information that is specific to this case, it's emotion with a smattering of self service.

So many comments here have recreated the scenario in which Nurse RV was working that day. They speak as if it is fact that she was overworked, stressed, pulled in to many different directions. I know that that is often the case. But it is not always the case. There are many days where the workload is pretty reasonable, a steady pace.

Now it is probably not "PC" to suggest that, but there is a chance that she was not having a day like some assume she was.

Then again, it may have been exactly as they described I just don't think that anyone should defend her actions based on what is unknown.

4 Votes
48 minutes ago, Workitinurfava said:

This wasn't deliberate, so she doesn't deserve the homicide charge.

Do you know what the word homicide means? It means a death of a person by hands of another. Intent has nothing to do with it. The DA agrees she didn't mean to kill the patient, but she was negligent (we all agree she was)...and that negligence caused a patient to die.

So the charge is appropriate.

5 Votes
1 hour ago, klone said:

For starters, putting a nurse with only a couple years of experience in the role as "resource nurse."

Well, she had been a nurse for four years and apparently had a certification in her area. So she wasn't a complete rookie, which makes it even worse.

2 Votes
Specializes in OB-Gyn/Primary Care/Ambulatory Leadership.
4 minutes ago, Jory said:

Well, she had been a nurse for four years and apparently had a certification in her area. So she wasn't a complete rookie, which makes it even worse.

She had only been an RN for 2 years at the time the incident occurred.

0 Votes

Imagine a person in a rush to get to a job -there is extreme pressure not to be late. People are depending on him to be on time.

He walks out to the car and sees that it is covered with a coating of frost. But there is no time to scrape the frost off. But heck, It's early morning and traffic is light.

He jumps in the car and takes off. No, he doesn't turn the lights on. He will in a minute... He's been on this road a thousand times, he could drive it blindfolded so he says to himself. And sure he can't see outside the car yet, but the defroster will clear the windows off soon enough...

But not soon enough.... Not being able to see the road, he was not able to see that he had veered off the road where a jogger was...

If that jogger was your loved one, would you be satisfied with anything less than reckless homicide? Even if he didn't intend to kill someone that morning?

3 Votes
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