Nurses Call the Governor of Tennessee

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

Specializes in NICU/Neonatal transport.
16 minutes ago, mtmkjr said:

I also find it interesting that to this day as far as I can tell, there is no documentation in the eMAR that any medication was given.

When she went into the patient's ICU room to let the physician and NP know that she had given the patient vecuronium instead of versed, they asked her if it had been documented. That may have simply been out of disbelief that such an error could be made within the system.

At that point I believe management/administration must have directed her not to document anything at all because the intent from that point on was to cover up, as they successfully did for the next year.

I can't remember... how did this finally reach CMS?

She was going to document it when she handed the "versed" (vec) back to the primary RN, who realized it was vec, and then RV went to management who said the vec would have crossed over to the MAR from the override, she didn't need to document (which was incorrect on their part).

The not being reported to the ME I don't think had anything to do with any sort of administrative cover up or desire to protect the hospital, just a provider trying to protect a nurse, who s/he had heard gossip about, but didn't know for sure. S/He should have said there was a concern for a med error, but s/he didn't.

I don't know it finally reached them. They may have had a whistle blower, it might have been an oversight and it just took a long time to reach them, because they did send out a sentinel event notice, so they were making a huge paper trail that would be hard to hide. I'll see if I can use the google fu more today :D

Edited: looks like maybe they were notified from the TN dept of health inspection.

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Specializes in Tele, ICU, Staff Development.
12 hours ago, Davey Do said:

I ask myself, "How could this happen?" when so many plain-as-the-nose-on-your-face safeguards didn't stop it from happening.

We here at allnurses lost a respected leader some years back to a tragic and heinous death and we asked ourselves, "How could this happen?"

This is the only reasonable rationale that I can fathom:

Once some electrochemical processes undergo potentiation, the process will continue on its way and logical conscious thought or hell and high water will not deter its course.

Of course that means anybody at anytime could be the world's greatest hero or the lowest of lows scoundrel.

There for the grace of God go I.

Sometimes I hold 2 opposing thoughts in my head. And allow them both to sit there.

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Specializes in ER.

The video by the YouTube doctor compared this case to the NP who left her baby in her car on a hot day at work. It's the danger of being on autopilot.

I personally think it's more common in our modern age. For instance, all the warnings, steps, computer processes definately cause me to be less focused on the here and now, and more focused on the technology that often seems like an obstacle course to navigate through.

I remember the days of paper MARs and a simpler process that allowed me to be more thoughtful.

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Specializes in ER.

Another thought I have is that I haven't read any mention of imput from the orientee in any of these reports. Were these people chatting up a storm, neither one paying much attention to what was going on? I have a feeling that having an orientee was a factor in this tragedy.

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20 minutes ago, Emergent said:

Another thought I have is that I haven't read any mention of imput from the orientee in any of these reports. Were these people chatting up a storm, neither one paying much attention to what was going on? I have a feeling that having an orientee was a factor in this tragedy.

I agree that having an orientee is a factor but good golly I'm on my best behavior when I'm training someone. I try to use every minute to teach them.

That's not to say I slack off when I'm on my own.

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Specializes in ACNP-BC, Adult Critical Care, Cardiology.
10 minutes ago, Wuzzie said:

I agree that having an orientee is a factor but good golly I'm on my best behavior when I'm training someone. I try to use every minute to teach them.

That's not to say I slack off when I'm on my own.

However, her relative inexperience and young age may have played against that in terms of handling the situation and telling the orientee that he/she needs to focus on the task at hand and that she will get to his/her questions when she's done if that was really what was going on. Some of us are better with handling that, I have no doubt in my mind that you are one of those ?. Again, not an excuse for making a series of missteps.

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I, too, wonder why there has been no documentation of the orientee's take on this. The orientee might not even be new nurse, just someone new to the hospital. Even if she just validated the testimony of the resource nurse, seems like her version of events would be crucial.

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50 minutes ago, CharleeFoxtrot said:

So yes, given what I have read I have to say I agree with the DA's decision to charge. Let the courts figure out if she is guilty of that charge and if so what an appropriate punishment would entail. Thankfully I am not in that jury pool.

While I generally do not oppose the criminal charges (like @Nurse Beth I have moments where two opposing thoughts are sitting in my head) it is a little unsettling to think that if this does go to trial her jury will be the general public and not fellow nurses..

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Specializes in ACNP-BC, Adult Critical Care, Cardiology.
1 minute ago, mtmkjr said:

While I generally do not oppose the criminal charges (like @Nurse Beth I have moments where two opposing thoughts are sitting in my head) it is a little unsettling to think that if this does go to trial her jury will be the general public and not fellow nurses..

I've sat on jury selection pool in court many times when I lived in a big city. Typically, when your profession or your expression of political leaning can affect the decision, you don't get picked. I have a feeling there won't be any nurses or physicians in this jury. What they will have are experts on the stand if the trial happens.

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50 minutes ago, LilPeanut said:

The not being reported to the ME I don't think had anything to do with any sort of administrative cover up or desire to protect the hospital, just a provider trying to protect a nurse, who s/he had heard gossip about, but didn't know for sure. S/He should have said there was a concern for a med error, but s/he didn't.

You don't think so? I don't think the provider had a say in how nursing actions were documented...(I don't disagree that they would try to protect the nurse if they could)

I could be wrong, but I think it was in the hands of administration at that point.

That allowed them not to report, just let it sit there as a death d/t brain bleed.

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7 minutes ago, juan de la cruz said:

However, her relative inexperience and young age may have played against that in terms of handling the situation and telling the orientee that he/she needs to focus on the task at hand and that she will get to his/her questions when she's done if that was really what was going on. Some of us are better with handling that, I have no doubt in my mind that you are one of those ?. Again, not an excuse for making a series of missteps.

And I would accept that if she was doing an advanced nursing skill but this was basic nursing and she's 35 and owns a business for goodness sake. Hardly a youngster.

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Specializes in ACNP-BC, Adult Critical Care, Cardiology.
8 minutes ago, Wuzzie said:

And I would accept that if she was doing an advanced nursing skill but this was basic nursing and she's 35 and owns a business for goodness sake. Hardly a youngster.

We don't really know what her role is in that business, for all we know her husband may be running it since she works as a nurse. I'll be 50 this year so she's young to me. The skill being so basic, repetitive, mundane, whatever we can call it made it so easy to overlook things in my opinion, just like with other scenarios of inattentional blindess. Anyway, these are all conjecture...I don't now her state of mind when it happened.

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