Posted on 04/08/2022 2:57:57 PM PDT by nickcarraway
A former Tennessee nurse has been found guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the death of a patient who was accidentally given the wrong medication, a jury found. RaDonda Vaught, 37, was also found guilty Friday of gross neglect of an impaired adult in a case that has fixed the attention of patient safety advocates and nurses' organizations around the country.
Vaught injected the paralyzing drug vecuronium into 75-year-old Charlene Murphey instead of the sedative Versed on Dec. 26, 2017. Vaught freely admitted to making several errors with the medication that day, but her defense attorney argued the nurse was not acting outside of the norm and systemic problems at Vanderbilt University Medical Center were at least partly to blame for the error.
The jury found Vaught not guilty of reckless homicide. Criminally neglent homicide was a lesser charge included under the original charge.
As Vaught waited for the verdict on Friday morning, she was continuously approached by local nurses who had come to the courthouse to support her. Vaught was calm after the verdict was read, but several of the nurses who surrounded her in the courthouse hallway were in tears.
Interviewed after the verdict, Vaught said she was relieved to have a resolution after 4 1/2 years and hopes Murphey's family is relieved as well.
"Ms. Murphey's family is at the forefront of my thoughts every day," she said. "You don't do something that impacts a family like this, that impacts a life, and not carry that burden with you."
Murphey had been admitted to the neurological intensive care unit on Dec. 24, 2017, after suffering from a brain bleed. Two days later, doctors trying to determine the cause of the bleed ordered a PET scan to check for cancer. Murphey was claustrophobic and was prescribed Versed for her anxiety, according to testimony. When Vaught could not find Versed in an automatic drug dispensing cabinet, she used an override and accidentally grabbed vecuronium instead.
An expert witness for the state argued that Vaught violated the standard of care expected of nurses. In addition to grabbing the wrong medicine, she failed to read the name of the drug, did not notice a red warning on the top of the medication, and did not stay with the patient to check for an adverse reaction, said nurse legal consultant Donna Jones.
Leanna Craft, a nurse educator at the neuro-ICU unit where Vaught worked, testified that it was common for nurses at that time to override the system in order to get drugs. The hospital had recently updated an electronic records system, which led to delays in retrieving medications from the automatic drug dispensing cabinets. There was also no scanner in the imaging area for Vaught to scan the medication against the patient's ID bracelet.
Assistant District Attorney Chadwick Jackson told the jury in closing arguments, "RaDonda Vaught acted recklessly, and Charlene Murphey died as a result of that. RaDonda Vaught had a duty of care to Charlene Murphey and RaDonda Vaught neglected that. ... The immutable fact of this case is that Charlene Murphey is dead because RaDonda Vaught couldn't pay attention to what she was doing."
Vaught said she is concerned that the verdict with cause other providers "to be wary about coming forward to tell the truth. I don't think the take-away from this is not to be honest and truthful."
Patient safety expert Bruce Lambert, in an interview before the verdict, said it was extremely concerning that Vaught was being criminally prosecuted for a medical error.
"This will not only cause nurses and doctors to not report medication errors, it will cause nurses to leave the profession," said Lambert, director of the Center for Communication and Health at Northwestern University.
Prior to the sentencing, Vaught said that she didn't regret honestly admitting her mistake. She felt she was being scapegoated after Vanderbilt became the subject of a surprise inspection by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
"Someone has to pay a price, and it's really easy to say, 'Just let her do it'," she said. "Nurses see that. Medics see it. Radiology technicians see it."
Prosecutors speaking about the verdict said it was not a precedent setting case that would result further criminalization of medical errors.
"This is not a case against the nursing community," said Assistant District Attorney Chadwick Jackson. "This is a case against one individual."
Janie Harvey Garner, who founded the nurse advocacy organization Show Me Your Stethoscope, disagreed.
"What's happened here is that health care has been completely changed," Garner said in a phone interview. "Now when we tell the truth, we're incriminating ourselves."
Garner, who has been helping to raise money for Vaught's defense, said ordinary people don't understand how difficult and stressful working as a nurse can be. She said errors are common and what happened to Vaught could have happened to anyone.
"A jury of her peers would have all been ICU nurses," Garner said.
The sentencing hearing is scheduled for May 13. Vaught faces three to six years in prison on the gross neglect conviction and one to two years on the criminally negligent homicide conviction. Vaught has been free on bail and remains free until after she is sentenced. She said she had not considered whether she would appeal.
Its labeled whatever its labeled in the state the charge is filed. They labeled it that in court. I called it an iatrogenic death, which is what its referred to in the medical community. And probably the insurance community.
I picked up blood pressure scripts for my mother at Walgreen’s. Among others, one was supposed to be hydalizine, a blood pressure med. When I got home, the label said hydroxozine, an antihistamine which can interact with some blood pressure meds. Apparently, they had been giving her the wrong medication for months.
When I took the script back to them, they became very anxious, and appropriately apologetic.
The lesson is, know your meds and read the labels always.
This should be reversed. I’m a retired ICU nurse and have seen this situation a few times in my career. It’s medication error. It happens daily in hospitals, pharmacies and clinics. 90% of the time no harm is done. I have seen patients injected with potassium mistaken for a saline flush solution. There are many more safety systems in place today, but nothing is foolproof. Some days as a nurse I gave over three hundred IV medications, some of them potentially deadly. I have made medication errors. No, I never missed as many safeguards and warnings as this nurse did, but she didn’t go to work that day planning to kill a patient. An atmosphere of punishment is not going to make hospitals safer. If she goes to jail, they need to increase the prison system to include air traffic controllers, doctors, truck drivers, and website designers. In the past people were sent to additional training, put on probation, had their licenses suspended or revoked. This is the worst time to institute more fear into the profession of nursing. After forty years in nursing in the ICU and OR I have PTSD. There isn’t a night that goes by that I don’t dream about harrowing situations at the bedside. At least I didn’t have to consider going to jail. This is a step backwards.
Sorry, you are misinterpreting what I am saying. I should be more clear.
Make the judges, DAs, parole boards accountable for the people they allowed to be killed due to their poor judgment, especially if we have a standard of giving out criminal charges to medical errors.
I am all for it.
The nurse manually overrode the machine dispensing the medication FIVE TIMES ignoring the warning messages to access the WRONG medication. The jury was justified in finding her guilty, imo.
But after this, nurses - and my daughter is one - are simply going to keep their mouths shut and just hope the mistake won't do permanent damage, or won't be discovered.
Dangerous for everyone.
She violated all long practiced protocols. No excuse
These poorly designed connected computer networks hooked up to mechanical med dispensers plus multitasking nurses, paperwork and regulatory requirements add to the propensity for error. It also sounds as if she was careless or clueless.
That’s why we need ideologically controlled corrupt politicians to overhaul our health systems. (Sarc)
So her making several errors with medication daily was the norm.
How many other people did she kill?
I think it might be a good idea to check.
You can sue the hell out of everyone involved, and the medical professional can lose their license. But criminal sanctions are going to make patients less safe in the end as the professionals now are incentivized to cover up rather than disclose immediately any mistakes.
They can also color coat the vials so it would make it easier to identify. Large Letters on the Bottles. Actually They should be required to scan them before use. It can be done quickly and a voice activated computer can read out loud the medication. This would have solved the problem
Are you kidding me?
You don’t think they are currently incentivized to cover up mistakes that kill or injure someone?
And these aren’t just “mistakes”. Like forgot napkins in the take out bag. These mistakes END PEOPLES LIVES. These are supposed to be top professionals we are all supposed to trust with our lives.
God you frigging people.
My stepdaughter is a nurse. They all know to report immediately any time they make a medication error, and do so on those rare occasions when it does happen.
Now? They're literally telling each other not to do that any more. You can call them horrible, or unprofessional, or anything you wish. Doesn't change the bottom-line reality that the net effect of this will be far fewer self-reports of errors.
You’re nuts. And projecting.
I didn’t call anyone names, you made that up completely. just because I am happy that iatrogenic deaths are taken seriously by the courts. You are rracting not to what was said, but your personal feelings.
I know people who work in medicine as well. I helped a buddy of mine when his partner went nuts on him becuase and found she had stolen not only meds from the hospital but patients medical records, and took them home. she was stealing from the medicine cabinets at work - painkillers - from back problems from work , for years. One place fires someone like this but they don’t alert other places and they go on to get jobs at another place and start all over again.
Like anywhere there are good folks and bad folks but the bad folks are able to go somewhere else and get hired because the prior place they worked don’t say anything as then they will get sued for attempted blacklisting and also expose themselves that they have that kind of person working in their hospitals.
But your story, and my story, are irrelevant to this case. Iatrogenic deaths should be regarded as serious by the courts and its negligent homicide. Different states have different legal terms for it, but when people die from a dumb error jail time is appropriate.
Look, if you are driving and ACCIDENTALLY kill someone with your vehicle, its quite possible you can do jail time for that. I’m not talking drunk driving. If you are coming out of a blind alley or taking a turn and kill someone, its accidental, but vehicular manslaughter or negligent whatever, you may very well end up in jail. Now these people were supposed to be doing a job, they were notmjust driving around. They failed at their job and their direct action or inaction caused a person’s life to end.
Its just so sadly funny you are so much more concerned about the person who killed someone over the people that are dead.
Suing and suspending or revoking licenses are the appropriate remedies.
You aren’t the one who determines what an “honest” error is.
You cannot know if its honest or not. Just because something isn’t deliberate doesn’t automatically or magically make it HONEST. that is completely ridiculous when it comes to talking about an error or series of errors that kills someone.
They could be careless and rushing around. Not doing due diligence. Being tired or overworked does not somehow make it an HONEST error. That is not an HONEST error in my opinion. And it should be decided in court when people die from these kinds of errors.
That term is idiotic. Like it absolves them because they can’t be tagged because they are touching the safe tree. The courts can decide if its an honest error or not. The dead person/people can’t tell anyone whether they’re ok with it or not.
None of what you say changes the point - criminalizing mistakes in giving medication will result in less self-reporting, and that will endanger patient lives. That's just a fact.
Very funny. You’re the one who brought up the personal angle, your stepdaughter. You’re the one who went emotional here.
Iatrogenic deaths are already underreported and the system hides the bad people working in these places by firing them but not pressing charges for fear of bad exposure, and they just go somewhere else and get the same job because demand for anyone to fill positions is high. They know they aren’t at risk for any criminal charges and so they have no fear to keep doing what they are doing.
Better yet go to the ER and let them in triage start reading off the names they have of the meds you are taking. There is no sense in the same drug having as many names as there are manufactures. There needs to be a precise name used by all. I know all about knowing your meds. I cared for my wife for 30 years plus kept up with my own and did her hospice and my parents. It can be simplified.
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