Vaught consciously made several grievous errors, all of which are cardinal sins of nursing, and a human being is dead because of it. RaDonda Vaught: Who prosecuted ex-Tennessee nurse in criminal case I know the reason this patient is no longer here is because of me, Vaught said, starting to cry. This did not cause the error, but their actions, including the cover-up, were wrong. Its going to become us-versus-them when it has to be for the safety of the patient all for one and one for all, she said. Oh no! Ultimately, on May 13, Davidson County Criminal Court Judge Jennifer Smith sentenced Vaught to three years in prison, but granted her supervised probation, meaning Vaught will avoid prison time. RaDonda Vaught's case. But the conviction piles on top of all the pandemic-related headaches and heartaches nurses have had to endure. We highlight the stories of Black Floridians seeking emotional healing and wellness. "This offense occurred in a medical setting. Nurse RaDonda Vaught convicted of 2 felonies for fatal medical error Thats because a Vanderbilt University Medical Center doctor who testified to the board that there were no systemic problems with medication dispensing at the time of the fatal accident later wrote a letter to the judge overseeing the criminal trial that seemed to contradict the earlier testimony. the Tennessee Department of Health's Board of Nursing charged Vaught with three infractions: unprofessional conduct, abandoning or neglecting a patient who required care . Since Vaught's arrest, this case elicited an outcry from nurses and medical professionals across the country. First, by failing to recognize this error as the cumulation of a series of systemic errors within Vanderbilt University Hospital, rather than focusing on Ms. Vaught who was herself a victim of these errors, the Boards of Health and Nursing, and the district attorney facilitate not only the perpetuation of this particular set of substandard practices, but also of a culture which prioritizes efficiency over safety and cost savings over patient care. Has 10 years experience. The fact we still have a functioning healthcare system in America is due in a large part to the selfless willingness of nurses to work in the face of overwhelming odds to provide care in difficult and dangerous environments. Third, by adding the risk of criminal prosecution for unintentional errors to nurses risks of personal injury from violent patients, falls, and strains as well as of infecting themselves and their families from viruses or other serious infections present in the hospital, the district attorney, Board of Health and Board of Nursing make nursing, already one of the most dangerous professions in our country, even more fraught with risk. Would they admit their mistakes and face the courts? Second, by resorting to the use of the fear of prosecution as a tool to intimidate nurses already beleaguered with the burdens of inadequate staffing, violent patients, assimilating new and confusing technology, dealing with difficult patients and physicians and others, the district attorney, Board of Health and Board of Nursing divert these caregivers attention even further from their tasks, forcing them instead to focus on their own risk for criminal liability. According to documents filed in the case, Vaught initially tried to withdraw Versed from a cabinet by typing "VE" into its search function without realizing she should have been looking for its generic name, midazolam. Vaughts lawyer Peter Strianse did not respond to the Posts request for comment. Vaught was ultimately sentenced to three . "There won't ever be a day that goes by that I don't think about what I did.". On September 27, 2019, the TN Department of Health (Nursing Board) reversed its previous decision not to pursue discipline against the nurse and chargedRaDonda Vaught with: On July 23, 2021, at the BON disciplinary trial, the Tennessee (TN) Board of Nursing revokedRaDonda Vaught's professional nursing license indefinitely, fined her $3,000, and stipulated that she pay up to $60,000 in prosecution costs. As a result, my organization has removed the medication "profile" for patients in our ADCs (we use Pyxis) so there is no longer a need for the "override" function, according to our legal team this will likely become common. ", "They are the patient and the family that will live with me the most," she added. She was coded, intubated, and taken back to ICU but was brain-dead and died within twelve hours. Sign up for Black Tennessee Voices newsletter:Read compelling columns by Black writers from across Tennessee. We help leaders and future leaders in the healthcare industry work smarter and faster by providing provocative insights, actionable strategies, and practical tools to support execution. On May 13, 2022, she was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide and gross neglect of an impaired adult, and sentenced to 3 years of supervised probation. RaDonda Vaught was a registered nurse in the neurointensive care unit at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. During the investigation, Vanderbilt failed to uphold evidence-based practice and was deceitful. Again, that had nothing to do with RV not actually reading the label on the vial of the medication she was given. Should RaDonda Vaught Have Her Nursing License Reinstated? Error in form submission. cleared by the Tennessee Board of Nursing, glitches with a new medication dispensing system, the pandemic-related headaches and heartaches, High pay for traveling nurses a symptom and cause of staff shortages, Nursing schools struggle to fill the void left by pandemic, For a rural hospital trying to reopen, hiring is a challenge, Apprenticeship gives California health care workers a career boost, Despite nurse shortage, tens of thousands are turned away from training programs, Stress and burnout stoke churn in health care workforce, Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. allnurses is a Nursing Career & Support site for Nurses and Students. I believe medication errors should not be prosecuted. Sign up for Latino Tennessee Voices newsletter:Read compelling stories for and with the Latino community in Tennessee. Maureen Shawn Kennedy, the editor-in-chief emerita of the American Journal of Nursing, wrote in 2019 that Vaughts case was every nurses nightmare.. And when mistakes happen, theyll have every reason to clam up. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you. Our mission is to Empower, Unite, and Advance every nurse, student, and educator. And Vaught couldn't explain why she didn'tnotice she had retrieved a powdered medicationwhen the drug was supposed to be a liquid, Pickering said. Extra Credit newsletter is an unexpected way to learn about the economy, one documentary film at a time. Strianse implied that outside pressure, including the fact that the Nashville district attorney decided to prosecute Vaught, led to the reversal, rather than any new evidence against her. The Tennessee Nurses Association and American Nurses Association said at the time that the verdict set a dangerous precedent in the profession. So I think nurses get very concerned because they know this could be them.. Vaught freely admitted to making several errors with the medication that day, but her defense attorney argued that she was not acting outside of the norm and that systemic problems at Vanderbilt were at least partly to blame for the error. ANA Responds to the Trial of Nurse RaDonda Vaught | ANA RaDonda Vaught, a former Vanderbilt nurse now convicted in the death of a patient, faces up to eight years in prison. 166 Articles Nicole Hester / Pool/The Tennessean via AP It was normal at the time, she said. Another investigator, Shirley Pickering, said her interviews with Vanderbilt staff revealed that as of 2017 thehospitals medication cabinets didn'tinclude an on-screen warning that would have prevented a nurse from mistakenly withdrawing vecuronium. In March 2022, Vaught was sentenced to three years probation after she was found guilty of impaired adult abuse and criminally negligent homicide both felonies that could have resulted in a three-year jail sentence. I've had about enough of her being called a scapegoat. 2. During Vaughts 2022 trial, prosecutors said her charges were a result of a series of errors: overriding the electronic medicine cabinet when she couldnt find the right drug, ignoring the difference in size and substance of the drug, ignoring the warning label, administering the drug, leaving the room without monitoring the patient and not scanning the medication into the patients file. After the Tuesday hearing, Vaught said she would never go back to nursing, even if her license is reinstated, but that she still cares about the profession and has good friends who are nurses. Murphey's care alone required at least 20 cabinet overrides in just three days, Vaught said. Healthcare professionals will then fail to self-report. All rights reserved. She and her husbandown a farm and I see her weekly at the local farmer's market, selling their produce. They didnt want this to be known, so they didnt let it be known.. Meriwether also argued that the second review was proper because it was based on a new complaint. Her string of failures were certainly disturbing, and I get that given the outcome there's a desire to see her punished, but I don't agree that the precedent that has to be set to make that happen is worth it. That should have been the end of the review, attorney Peter Strianse argued. Ultimately, Vaught said, "[i]t is heart-wrenching to know that Ms. Murphey and her family were so horrifically let down. Do I agree with the original change and the TN BON finally getting around to doing something beside irrevocably damaging the public faith in that entity? I made some mistakes that I didnt sleep for three days, said Katy Greene Davis, a former trauma nurse at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, who transitioned away from the bedside. Vaught, 39, was found guilty last week in the 2017 death of Charlene Murphy. Following the fatal error, theTennessee Board of Nursinglast year revoked Vaught's RN license, effectively ending her nursing career. There wont ever be a day that goes by that I dont think about what I did.. Case timeline:The RaDonda Vaught case is confusing. Our members represent more than 60 professional nursing specialties. Vaught was found guilty of of two charges, criminally negligent homicide. Can an expired California registered nurse license be accepted for endorsement in New York? Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development. The hospital did not report the accidental death to the state government, which was required by law, or the Joint Commission, which is recommended but not required. A hearing is scheduled for November 20, 2019. Response to the Conviction of Nurse RaDonda Vaught | ANA That day, Vaught was called to the radiology department to administer a sedative to patient Charlene Murphey, 75, before she . She had sustained an unwitnessed respiratory arrest and was pulseless. I don't hope for a prison sentence, but she should never be allowed to work as a nurse again. When I first heard of this case, I felt that the criminal charges were an overreaction to an unfortunate mistake, but failed to understand why RV's license hadn't been pulled. Many are medications given at the wrong time or not at all. Garner said most nurses know all too well the pressures that contribute to such an error: long hours, crowded hospitals, imperfect protocols and the inevitable creep of complacency in a job with daily life-or-death stakes. By instilling severe penalties for those whose errors are discovered, the chance that errors will be appropriately addressed becomes even more remote. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programsatKFF(Kaiser Family Foundation). Most of us recall the RaDonda Vaught case in 2017 because it involved a fatal medication error, and she was charged with reckless homicide for the mistake. At the very least, subpar nursing should have resulted in some disciplinary action and required remediation. But Vaught also questioned how her case would affect nurses who will make errors in the future. Should RaDonda Vaught Have Her Nursing License Reinstated? Nurses around the country rallied for RaDonda Vaught during her criminal trial, saying the risk of going to prison for a mistake made nursing intolerable. Murphey died. Sounds to me like the Tennessee BON got caught with their pants down and now are scrambling to do what they should have done in the first place. This could be me. Janie Harvey Garner, a St. Louis registered nurse and founder of Show Me Your Stethoscope, a nursing group with more than 600,000 members on Facebook, said the group has closely watched Vaughts case for years out of concern for her fate and their own. Three new studies analyzing long Covid attempted to determine how prevalent the condition is, how long the condition lasts, and what causes it. She knew better and CHOSE to practice in an unsafe manner. I maintain my stance that this whole episode began with a fake emergency. Vaughts former employer has not faced punishment, though Vaughts defense argued glitches with a new medication dispensing system were partly to blame. She testified that Vaught told her she did not recall seeing thelarge warning on the medication vial. The decision to prosecute her made history because it set a precedent for criminalizing medical errors. The fact that she is trying to get her license reinstated shows (IMO) how little self-awareness she has, which was certainly evidenced by her behavior and social media presence during the trial itself. She was negligent and a vulnerable person died as a result. Former Vanderbilt nurse RaDonda Vaught found guilty on 2 charges in 2017 death of patient. As much as I dont wish misfortune on any human being she has proven herself unworthy of it and there is no guarantee if they continue to let her practice she wont do something like this again. Jury chosen in homicide trial of ex-Vanderbilt nurse RaDonda Vaught after fatal drug error. 141 Articles; Vaught did what every other Vanderbilt nurse was doing in 2017, utilizes the override function to access the drug, Strianse said. No question is too big or too small. Fatal errors are generally handled by licensing boards and civil courts. The patient was supposed to get Versed, a sedative intended to calm her before being scanned in a large, MRI-like machine. Get the weekly opinion newsletter for insightful and thought provoking columns. Follow him on Twitter at @brettkelman. The RaDonda Vaught case is confusing. This was not a case against the nursing community. RaDonda's errors were grievous, and she was sanctioned by the BON as well as criminally prosecuted. "We know that the more patients a nurse has, the more room there is for errors," Kennedy said. She could still be alive, with her family. Your updates are made successfully. Of those 400,000 somewhere between seven and 9,000 [1] of those errors result in the death of a patient. This study guide will help you focus your time on what's most important. The ISMP said RaDonda displayed human error and at-risk behaviors but not reckless behavior. At the Tuesday hearing at Chancery Court in Nashville, her attorney pointed out that the Department of Health initially reviewed Vaughts errors and concluded the case did not merit further action in a 2018 letter. We were using the override function for a lot of things that we wouldnt necessarily have used it for before, Vaught testified, adding later: Overriding was something we did as a part of our practice every day, you couldnt get a bag of fluids for a patient without using an override function.. RaDonda Vaught Sentenced to Three Years Probation After Injecting Patient with Wrong Drug. She did not shirk responsibility for the error, but she said the blame was not hers alone. "I know the reason this patient is no longer here is because of me," Vaught said, starting to cry. (Place additional comments in the comment section below the article). Garner said she once switched powerful medications just as Vaught did and caught her mistake only in a last-minute triple-check. Assistant Attorney General Trent Meriwether, representing the state, argued that it was not. In the pandemic, she said, this is truer than ever. Vaught reiterated these claims during her own testimony, saying her mistake was only possible because of Vanderbilt's policies. She was also found guilty of gross neglect of an impaired adult. allnurses, LLC, 175 Pearl St Ste 355, Brooklyn NY 11201 1-917 . Two years later: What surprised us most about Covid-19, 2 free members-only resources remaining this month, free members-only resources remaining this month, Unlimited access to research and resources, Member-only access to events and trainings, The latest content delivered to your inbox. Overrides are common outside of Vanderbilt too, according to experts following Vaughts case. On March 25, about 2,400 miles away in a Tennessee courtroom, former nurse RaDonda Vaught was convicted of two felonies and now faces eight years in prison for a fatal medication mistake.. Silver Spring, MD - Former Vanderbilt University Medical Center nurse RaDonda Vaught is being charged with reckless homicide and abuse of an impaired . Nashville Tennessean 0:00 0:45 RaDonda Vaught, a Tennessee nurse, is the central figure in a criminal case that has captivated and horrified medical professionals nationwide. In 2017, Vaught, using an electronic medicine cabinet, overrode a function to mistakenly give patient Charlene Murphey a powerful sedative rather than an anti-anxiety medication, resulting in the patients death. They went from Not only is this not an issue, but were going to go so far as to keep it off of your licensure record to the complete opposite conclusion that You are a threat to public safety, and your license is going to be revoked, Vaught said. Guilty verdict in RaDonda Vaught case has other nurses worried While testifying before the nursing board last year, foreshadowing her defense in the upcoming trial, Vaught said at the time of Murpheys death that Vanderbilt was instructing nurses to use overrides to overcome cabinet delays and constant technical problems caused by an ongoing overhaul of the hospitals electronic health records system. Now, the criminal conviction of RaDonda Vaught who made a fatal medication error is another source of anxiety and frustration for nurses. Do you agree with the original criminal charges filed by the prosecutors? Has 18 years experience. RaDonda Vaught Sentenced to Three Years Probation After Injecting Patient with Wrong Drug.
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