Radonda Vaught is charging $10,000 per speaking engagement.

[klone]

Or, $7,500 if you just want her virtually. Good to know that negligent homicide is such a lucrative endeavor. 
 

https://www.executivespeakers.com/speaker/radonda-vaught

[klone, MSN, RN]

This topic is everybody's business. And the only ones coming close to "piling on" that I've seen in the thread are the RV apologists. Those of us who have been critical of her are not armchair quarterbacks. We've literally been discussing this case since 2018, LONG before it made national headlines. We have read the TBI report. We have watched the trial. We have watched the BON hearings (both of them). I daresay there are folks here who know as much about the case as the attorneys. 

The national headlines have been soundbytes leaving out very important details, making it seem like RV was a victim in all of this. She is NOT. She was a sloppy, lazy nurse who had no business practicing. I think all of us would have been okay if she had just had her license taken away, and not be charged criminally. Unfortunately, criminal charges were the only other option, after she walked away with no repercussions, free to continue her lazy, sloppy, careless practice. We should ALL care about this, and want lazy, sloppy, careless nurses taken out of practice.

ALWAYS ALWAYS do your 5 Rights. EVERY SINGLE TIME.

[NurseGerard]

CWS RN said:

The topic really is none of our business.

wait - what? do you mean the facts of the case, the verdicts, implications for nursing practice and protecting the public, the responses of prominent nurses and nursing orgs with large platforms, her speaker fees?

It's central to our business, IMO

[Delia37, MSN]

chare said:

How so?

Right?!!

I am scratching my head after reading some of these responses defending her. People saying that what she did was a mistake, are not obviously critical care nurses.  What she did was ignore several hard stops, leave a patient alone after sedation...she even went as far as to reconstitute the paralytic (which was in a powder form). 

Like, seriously??!

 

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

For those who would like to see the primary sources:

Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Report

CMS Report

Board of Nursing Hearing Day 1

Board of Nursing Hearing Day 2

[JKL33]

I think there's another take-away from this case that deserves mention—especially for those concerned that this could happen to them:

How you choose to operate as a nurse-employee matters. 

While I do not advocate being unnecessarily  contentious, we are indeed faced, almost daily, with tasks and requests that are made urgent on the basis of business principles or customer satisfaction or some other thing that is not directly related to the excellent care of patients. We have to know how to handle these, how to prioritize and when to put our foot down, even when doing so earns eye-rolls and snide comments and frustration from administration. 

One of the more tragic aspects of this case, IMO, is that the testing that required sedation was NOT emergent; it wasn't even an urgent matter as far as patient treatment and well-being is concerned. The patient was otherwise just about ready for discharge. 
 

That means that if the hospital's system for verifying meds and moving them to the profile doesn't appear to be working (as is what RV supposedly believed) there's plenty of time for THEM to figure that out, or at least actively help troubleshoot.  It doesn't mean that the RN has to keep everything rolling by using less-safe procedures so that a random non-urgent matter can still get done as if it were an emergency. Healthcare corporations decided that THEY wanted to operate on car manufacturing principles. So? STOP THE LINE.

Same for the swallow study to be done in the ED. That, too, was neither an emergency nor an urgent matter of patient well-being. Were this me, at the point that I knew I needed to be involved in this other task of administering IV sedation in the basement, that swallow study would've been off my list of things to care about for the time being. Completely. I really don't care if someone has to wait another 2 hours to be granted their usual diet in the grand scheme of things. And I 100% don't care if prompt ED swallow screens by someone tasking in another department is what admins think is best. 

Along with performing the 5 Rights ALWAYS, EVERY TIME, I think this is another issue that all should reflect upon. At the end of the day, the patient's safety and well-being must remain at the top of our list always. 

THERE IS ALWAYS TIME TO DO THINGS THE RIGHT WAY, with the appropriate due diligence.  

[NurseGerard]

JKL33 said:

JKL33 said:

THERE IS ALWAYS TIME TO DO THINGS THE RIGHT WAY, with the appropriate due diligence.  

100%

additional sources:

prosecution closing arguments: 

 

defense closing: 

prosecution rebuttal: 

 

[toomuchbaloney]

JKL33 said:

I think there's another take-away from this case that deserves mention—especially for those concerned that this could happen to them:

How you choose to operate as a nurse-employee matters. 

While I do not advocate being unnecessarily  contentious, we are indeed faced, almost daily, with tasks and requests that are made urgent on the basis of business principles or customer satisfaction or some other thing that is not directly related to the excellent care of patients. We have to know how to handle these, how to prioritize and when to put our foot down, even when doing so earns eye-rolls and snide comments and frustration from administration. 

One of the more tragic aspects of this case, IMO, is that the testing that required sedation was NOT emergent; it wasn't even an urgent matter as far as patient treatment and well-being is concerned. The patient was otherwise just about ready for discharge. 
 

That means that if the hospital's system for verifying meds and moving them to the profile doesn't appear to be working (as is what RV supposedly believed) there's plenty of time for THEM to figure that out, or at least actively help troubleshoot.  It doesn't mean that the RN has to keep everything rolling by using less-safe procedures so that a random non-urgent matter can still get done as if it were an emergency. Healthcare corporations decided that THEY wanted to operate on car manufacturing principles. So? STOP THE LINE.

Same for the swallow study to be done in the ED. That, too, was neither an emergency nor an urgent matter of patient well-being. Were this me, at the point that I knew I needed to be involved in this other task of administering IV sedation in the basement, that swallow study would've been off my list of things to care about for the time being. Completely. I really don't care if someone has to wait another 2 hours to be granted their usual diet in the grand scheme of things. And I 100% don't care if prompt ED swallow screens by someone tasking in another department is what admins think is best. 

Along with performing the 5 Rights ALWAYS, EVERY TIME, I think this is another issue that all should reflect upon. At the end of the day, the patient's safety and well-being must remain at the top of our list always. 

THERE IS ALWAYS TIME TO DO THINGS THE RIGHT WAY, with the appropriate due diligence.  

I lost my last direct nursing job for refusing to break rules and laws regarding information and interaction with law enforcement at death of hospice patients. I insisted that we follow the law and hospital policy for such communication, the good ol' boy network didn't like that. They wanted backdoor special treatment.  

It's OK. I can sleep at night. 

[Aliareza, BSN]

Eh. I have mixed feelings on it myself. She was truly thrown under the bus. She was incredibly remorseful from the very start and showed that in every action she took. She immediately admitted her mistake and reported herself to the hospital and the BON as well if I remember correctly. Vanderbilt did everything they could to cover it up and it was only when the DA forcefully brought charges (because the patient's family did not want criminal charges brought against Radonda, stating that their mother was an understanding and forgiving person who would not have wanted to press charges) that the incident was re-looked into and punitive action was taken. It set an absolutely appalling precedent for all nurses when she was found guilty. 

Given all of the things that happened, I'm not surprised she wants to share her story. It's going to be an important one for many of us in healthcare. The very high speaker fee is what gives me pause, but I don't know much about speaker's fees. Is it high enough to be considered profiting from the dead? I'm not sure; I think that comes down to how much she actually makes from it. And what is the intent behind being a speaker? Will she advocate for nurses and safety and try to use this event for good? There are so many aspects she could choose to speak on which all contributed to this debacle; unsafe practices in hospitals, lack of support from peers even when asked, the cover-up Vanderbilt attempted after the fact, her own shortcomings, the battle with the BON to keep her license, etc. 

I'm left with more questions than answers. 

[toomuchbaloney]

Aliareza said:

Eh. I have mixed feelings on it myself. She was truly thrown under the bus. She was incredibly remorseful from the very start and showed that in every action she took. She immediately admitted her mistake and reported herself to the hospital and the BON as well if I remember correctly. Vanderbilt did everything they could to cover it up and it was only when the DA forcefully brought charges (because the patient's family did not want criminal charges brought against Radonda, stating that their mother was an understanding and forgiving person who would not have wanted to press charges) that the incident was re-looked into and punitive action was taken. It set an absolutely appalling precedent for all nurses when she was found guilty. 

Given all of the things that happened, I'm not surprised she wants to share her story. It's going to be an important one for many of us in healthcare. The very high speaker fee is what gives me pause, but I don't know much about speaker's fees. Is it high enough to be considered profiting from the dead? I'm not sure; I think that comes down to how much she actually makes from it. And what is the intent behind being a speaker? Will she advocate for nurses and safety and try to use this event for good? There are so many aspects she could choose to speak on which all contributed to this debacle; unsafe practices in hospitals, lack of support from peers even when asked, the cover-up Vanderbilt attempted after the fact, her own shortcomings, the battle with the BON to keep her license, etc. 

I'm left with more questions than answers. 

No. She was not thrown under the bus.  She was a professional given an important task and she was so careless and negligent that she killed a woman in a horrible, nightmarish fashion.  

Try scrolling up a few comments and reading the facts of the case rather than commentary.

[Aliareza, BSN]

toomuchbaloney said:

No. She was not thrown under the bus.  She was a professional given an important task and she was so careless and negligent that she killed a woman in a horrible, nightmarish fashion.  

Try scrolling up a few comments and reading the facts of the case rather than commentary.

Will you claim that Vanderbilt had no hand in this patient's death? The environment in which she worked sounds absolutely appalling to me as a nurse of ~10 years, and yet I have worked in similar environments where safety checks were routinely not present or operating as intended, and nurses were blamed for the inevitable mistakes that happened as their patient ratios and work responsibilities increased with no relief for them. Now working in a teaching hospital with a process improvement mindset vs a mindset that blames staff for any mistake and is punitive towards them, I have a much clearer picture of how mistakes like this are not all staff's fault the way money-hungry hospital systems would love for us to believe they are; there is shared responsibility when an environment of safety is not prized and cultivated. 

[toomuchbaloney]

Aliareza said:

Will you claim that Vanderbilt had no hand in this patient's death? The environment in which she worked sounds absolutely appalling to me as a nurse of ~10 years, and yet I have worked in similar environments where safety checks were routinely not present or operating as intended, and nurses were blamed for the inevitable mistakes that happened as their patient ratios and work responsibilities increased with no relief for them. Now working in a teaching hospital with a process improvement mindset vs a mindset that blames staff for any mistake and is punitive towards them, I have a much clearer picture of how mistakes like this are not all staff's fault the way money-hungry hospital systems would love for us to believe they are; there is shared responsibility when an environment of safety is not prized and cultivated. 

You do not have a clear picture of what happened if you think she was simply thrown under the bus.  Read the facts and details.  

[Aliareza, BSN]

toomuchbaloney said:

You do not have a clear picture of what happened if you think she was simply thrown under the bus.  Read the facts and details.  

I don't think there's anything simple about it. She made a mistake that killed a patient. There were many factors involved, her own negligence and poor practice included. There is no questioning that. My question to you was this: "Will you claim that Vanderbilt had no hand in this patient's death?"