5 things would have detered nurse from killing

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"I've given a lot of thought to changes that could have been made where I would not have been able to do this."

5 things nurse Elizabeth Wettlaufer suggests might have stopped her killing | CBC News

Listed in the article are the 5 things that Canadian nurse Elizabeth Wettlaufer say could have deterred her serial killing of patients.

She thinks insulin should be counted, for one. I hope that doesn't come into being, but I can see some desk jockey thinking it a great idea.

Interesting that she says Seroquel numbed her conscience and made it easier to kill. It sounds like she was very poorly monitored psychiatrically.

Specializes in ED, psych.
Macawake, I really like your viewpoint on this and I tend to agree. I'm not sure everyone caught that this was an inquiry after she was convicted. It didn't strike me as her deflecting blame as much as it did others here. We've had television programs in the US where burglars have shared how they did what they did to inform homeowners how they could protect themselves. I'm sure they did it as a means to assuage their guilty consciences but it never struck me as victim blaming. Let me be clear, what this woman did was evil to the nth degree but I'm hesitant to assume what her intent in answering the inquiry's questions was. If you look at her answers some of them pointed out issues that actually are problems. Physicians handing out scripts for powerful medications with little to no assessment of their patients, a broken down mental health system, a society that has become apathetic (how many people did she tell that did nothing?). No, these aren't excuses for WHAT she did but they certainly are a means to make it more difficult to stop her from doing it at all. Don't get me wrong. I believe she is 100% responsible for her heinous acts I just can't say for sure that she doesn't think so too.

I remember watching a news story a little while ago, saying that she wouldnt have been a serial killer if she wouldn't have been a nurse due to the methods she had available and the population she targeted. I'll have to try to find it.

But it does allude to both you and macawake's points so I'll adjust my point of view.

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Specializes in Short Term/Skilled.

OMG this is insane. What would have stopped it was for her to have been committed a long time ago. Jesshe.

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Specializes in Psychiatry, Community, Nurse Manager, hospice.
"I've given a lot of thought to changes that could have been made where I would not have been able to do this."

5 things nurse Elizabeth Wettlaufer suggests might have stopped her killing | CBC News

Listed in the article are the 5 things that Canadian nurse Elizabeth Wettlaufer say could have deterred her serial killing of patients.

She thinks insulin should be counted, for one. I hope that doesn't come into being, but I can see some desk jockey thinking it a great idea.

Interesting that she says Seroquel numbed her conscience and made it easier to kill. It sounds like she was very poorly monitored psychiatrically.

She does not say that seroquel numbed her conscience and made it easier to kill. She says that she didn't realize the gravity of what she had done until she came off the seroquel, which is a very different statement.

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Specializes in ER.
She does not say that seroquel numbed her conscience and made it easier to kill. She says that she didn't realize the gravity of what she had done until she came off the seroquel, which is a very different statement.

What is so different?

It altered her perception of the moral seriousness of killing people, according to her. She didn't realize how bad it was until she got off of Seroquel.

We don't know if Seroquel was a factor or not. It certainly wasn't helping her mental illness if she was killing people to relieve stress and anxiety.

We do know that some psyche meds have induced suicide, or other adverse behaviors, hallucinations, and other deleterious side effects.

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Assuming that she was telling the truth, she had a bunch of enablers, from her current girlfriend, to the ex boyfriend, to her pastor who was all set to leave his wife and let her live with him and take care of her?

Why didn't they report her?

Just how many dysfunctional people *are* there in this world?

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Specializes in ED, psych.
What is so different?

It altered her perception of the moral seriousness of killing people, according to her. She didn't realize how bad it was until she got off of Seroquel.

We don't know if Seroquel was a factor or not. It certainly wasn't helping her mental illness if she was killing people to relieve stress and anxiety.

We do know that some psyche meds have induced suicide, or other adverse behaviors, hallucinations, and other deleterious side effects.

There is a correlation between Seroquel and violence (and benzos and violence, and opioids and violence), but not that one definitely causes the other. I think it is something like 1 in 6 Americans are on a psychotropic medication; if such is the case, you would see such s/e all over the place.

As we know, those with mental illness are often the victims of violence (not the perpetrators).

Such posts like this just feel off. Sure, the seroquel didn't help her. But like a good little psych patient (you know, like the rest of us?), try a new med, a new therapy ... try a walk with your dog, a spa day ... don't go killing senior citizens to relieve the stressors in your life, m'kay?

It's human nature to look for something to blame. Sometimes it's just pure evil.

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Specializes in Psychiatry, Community, Nurse Manager, hospice.
What is so different?

It altered her perception of the moral seriousness of killing people, according to her. She didn't realize how bad it was until she got off of Seroquel.

We don't know if Seroquel was a factor or not. It certainly wasn't helping her mental illness if she was killing people to relieve stress and anxiety.

We do know that some psyche meds have induced suicide, or other adverse behaviors, hallucinations, and other deleterious side effects.

You are assuming she had a conscience to begin with and that coming off the seroquel woke up her conscience from a numb state.

But norhing she says really points to that.

"The gravity of what I did" could be that she never realized what it would really feel like to get caught, go to jail, be a pariah. I think that's more likely.

At our county jail seroquel is one of the many, many psych meds on the prohibited list because of cheeking and abuse potential. My patients have to come off it when they go to jail.

I'd be interested to know if that was the case here.

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Specializes in ER.

I think we can probably assume the the woman was crazy. She had no logical motive to kill these people. I'm no psychiatrist, but the one who was seeing her wasn't very perceptive at all, and my layman diagnosis is that she is nuts and he is incompetent.

She knew enough at one point to check herself into a mental facility and confess. I wouldn't write off her conscience entirely.

As far as her confessing to her friend and pastor, I'm curious whether this was corroborated by them? That's the part of her story that does sound very farfetched.

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Specializes in Geriatrics, Dialysis.

While this story is no doubt horrific the effects on the rest of the nursing staff are also horrific. Not only do they have to continue working knowing that one of their coworkers was a stone cold killer they also have to continue working under a microscope for the foreseeable future. I can't imagine the stress that puts on both staff and management being watched by the government inspectors continuously. I hate it when it's just the yearly inspection. Even when I know I am doing my job correctly there's just something very disconcerting about having somebody standing silently over your shoulder watching every move and taking notes.

Her reasoning behind using insulin as a murder weapon simply because it's not closely monitored is true, insulin dosing in the LTC setting isn't closely monitored. Sadly by using that as an excuse going forward every nurse in LTC might be negatively affected. I work LTC and have several insulin dependent diabetics under my care, if I had to wait until a second nurse was available to double check my insulin injections just prior to giving them those diabetics would be waiting for their insulin WAY longer than they should. Now because one nurse chose to murder dementia patients under her care because that is the population that wouldn't complain and wouldn't be believed if they did complain and chose insulin as her murder weapon every nurse in that facility going forward will have to deal with much tighter controls on insulin administration. Because of course the answer is to essentially punish the whole bunch because of that one bad apple.

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Specializes in ORTHO, PCU, ED.
Assuming that she was telling the truth, she had a bunch of enablers, from her current girlfriend, to the ex boyfriend, to her pastor who was all set to leave his wife and let her live with him and take care of her?

Why didn't they report her?

Just how many dysfunctional people *are* there in this world?

Quite frankly I don't know if I believe half that crap. She told MORE THAN ONE PERSON including a LAWYER she was killing people and everybody basically went "meh"?!?! I can't. She is a serial killer. Her brainwaves are screwed. As far as I'm concerned she has zero credibility.

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Specializes in ORTHO, PCU, ED.
As far as her confessing to her friend and pastor, I'm curious whether this was corroborated by them? That's the part of her story that does sound very farfetched.

Just read this after I posted. Exactly.

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Specializes in LTC, Rehab.

I only skimmed the article, but I didn't have the thoughts about her that a lot of y'all did. I took it in the same tone as a former burglar or computer hacker who helps authorities by pointing out ways to stop others who do what they did. (I'm not saying I'm 'right' or anything - I'm only saying that that's the way it struck me).

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