Radonda Vaught Trial

[tnbutterfly - Mary]

"Fourteen Nashvillians were chosen Monday, March 21, 2022 to sit as a jury in the case of RaDonda Vaught, a former Vanderbilt University Medical Center nurse charged in the death of a patient. She faces charges of reckless homicide and impaired adult abuse in the 2017 death of Charlene Murphey."

For more on this story, see

Jury chosen in homicide trial of ex-Vanderbilt nurse RaDonda Vaught after fatal drug error

RaDonda Vaught’s Arraignment - Guilty or Not of Reckless Homicide and Patient Abuse?

Tennessee Nurse RaDonda Vaught - Legal Perspectives of Fatal Medication Error

What do you think the verdict should/will be?

[LPN Retired, LPN]

Wow . I feel so bad for the patient and the nurse . it had to be so horrible for Ms. Murphey . to have to lie there and not be able to breathe and no way to get any help . I sit here. and try to hold my breath. Trying to put one toe in her shoe and I cant even hold my breath 30 seconds that I must take a big breath . and she had to endure that for several minutes. It had to be so frighteningly horrible . 

[tnbutterfly - Mary, BSN]

The state has rested its case. The jury will begin deliberations on Friday morning.

Read the full breakdown of day 3 here.

 

[JKL33]

15 hours ago, Wuzzie said:

Do you look at the vial to make sure you’re drawing up the correct med prior to administering it? Yes? Then you likely won’t kill a patient.

Or as others (you?) have pointed out in other discussions, have a glance at your patient after you push something into them.

Or come up with another plan. Possibly what I would've done right from the beginning given the specific situation.  There is no way I would've hustled off down to the bowels of the hospital to squirt some Versed that someone else didn't feel comfortable giving while on my way to a 3rd unit to do some other little non-crucial task.

That's an important take-away from all of this--there are needs and then there are wants. It is important to prioritize them appropriately at all times no matter which coworkers, admins, providers, families or patients might throw a little hissy fit. Nothing about the original scenario (the versed, the PET scan, the swallow screen in the ED) was actually urgent. Some people may want the nurse to go fast, some people may want the neuro ICU RNs to hustle down to ED for stupid swallow screens (because reasons), some people may want a patient's non-urgent PET scan to be done now instead of having to be fit into another time slot. Well, at the end of the day those are all wants.

Sorry, just ruminating. This whole thing is soooooo messed up from start to finish.

[FolksBtrippin, BSN, RN]

16 hours ago, Wuzzie said:

Can you expand on this?

I did say more in my original post. But I’ll add that there is no precedent for a med error being classified as reckless homicide. 
 

 

[klone, MSN, RN]

8 hours ago, Julius Seizure said:

I have to be honest though, this part makes me feel yucky:

"A lead investigator in the criminal case against former Tennessee nurse RaDonda Vaught testified Wednesday that state investigators found Vanderbilt University Medical Center had a “heavy burden of responsibility” for a grievous drug error that killed a patient in 2017, but pursued penalties and criminal charges only against the nurse and not the hospital itself."

In Nurse’s Trial, Investigator Says Hospital Bears ‘Heavy’ Responsibility for Patient Death | Kaiser Health News (khn.org)

Absolutely I think that the facility should be tried for SOMETHING. Accessory after the fact or something. Whatever charge is appropriate for someone who was aware that a "reckless homicide" occurred, but covered it up/didn't tell anyone

[klone, MSN, RN]

Wow, so did defense decline to mount a case? Do they think it's that strong that they are going to rely solely on reasonable doubt from the prosecution's case? Interesting.

[Wuzzie]

1 hour ago, FolksBtrippin said:

I did say more in my original post. But I’ll add that there is no precedent for a med error being classified as reckless homicide. 
 

 

That would be true if this was a simple medication error but it wasn't. 

[klone, MSN, RN]

This goes so beyond "med error." It doesn't matter that intent to harm wasn't there. 

An analogy for "med error" would be - person is driving their car, following the laws of the road, and gets distracted because they dropped their phone, and as they reach down to pick it up, they kill a pedestrian.

An analogy for what RV did is - person is driving their car, goes 80mph in a 40, chooses to run a red light, and kills a pedestrian.

In the first case, someone had a lapse in judgment, made a mistake, and someone died. In the second case, someone made a series of conscious decisions that broke safety laws, and as a result, someone died. I could forgive the first, and rationalize that this could happen to....not EVERYONE, but a LOT of people. The second scenario, no. 

[JBMmom, MSN, NP]

   I'm not sure how well this picture cuts and pastes, but for me, many of the other things she did like over-riding a medication in the pyxis, only entering two letters and taking whatever popped up, and even forgetting whether it was a liquid or powder, could happen to anyone. HOWEVER, the large red warning (or I guess some packaging makes it yellow), that literally surrounded the area she would have to look at in order to draw up the medication, is where it becomes a personal responsibility and in no way a system error. We have a pyxis with paralytics we can override, but I'm sure it's not necessary in all care areas, I don't have a clear understanding of how her hospital was set up.

We all get stuck in routines and sometimes things become automatic. No matter what happens, I'm sure she feels awful and she's lost her career. The tragically ironic part is that the poor patient was being given versed for claustrophobia. And for many people the claustrophobia makes them feel like they're going to suffocate. The fact that one of this woman's worst fears is literally how her life ended is just heartbreaking. 

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

Not guilty on charge of reckless homicide. 

Guilty of lesser charge of criminally negligent homicide as well as felony abuse of an impaired adult. 

https://www.newschannel5.com/news/jury-to-soon-deliver-verdict-in-trial-for-radonda-vaught-former-vanderbilt-medical-center-nurse

[Wuzzie]

I think Radonda should have exercised her right to remain silent post-proceedings.

[LPN Retired, LPN]

Well, they jury has spoken . I just wonder what they sentence will be . 

Whatever it is, shes going to be in her own living  hell until the day she dies . she will never get over it . I know I wouldn't . maybe this can just be a learning experience for every nurse out there to be extra careful and follow what we were taught in school. Hopefully the hospitals will come up with ways to prevent other incidents like this .