We should start with the cold, hard facts. RaDonda Vaught, a former R.N. at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center has just been convicted “of gross neglect of an impaired adult and negligent homicide,” for causing the accidental death of a patient.
She is not an evil person. In fact, she has not run afoul of the law before. Nevertheless, she could be looking at up to eight years in jail for her crimes of negligent homicide and patient neglect.
Intently watched
The trial which admittedly, hardly caused a mainstream media ripple, totally riveted nurses, physicians and paramedics across the country. Generally speaking, when a nurse makes a mistake, the nurse is hauled before their professional licensing boards or civil courts.
This case was a criminal prosecution or perhaps a persecution, based on your point of view, are quite rare. Throughout the country, medical professionals are terrified that if they fully disclose the truth behind an untimely patient death – or any negative consequence, they will be practicing a form of self-incrimination.
The American Nurses Association has stated:
“(That) Vaught’s conviction sets a ‘dangerous precedent’ of criminalizing the honest reporting of mistakes.’ The nursing profession is already extremely short-staffed, strained and facing immense pressure…this ruling will have a long-lasting negative impact on the profession.”
The alleged crime was committed in 2017 and the nurse was arrested in 2019.
What happened?
It occurred because Vaught injected an “impaired adult” with an improper medication and then failed to monitor her. The condition was due to a brain injury and the victim was allegedly improving. The orders called for a mild sedative and instead Vaught claims to have been distracted and gave her a powerful paralyzing drug. It left the patient brain dead. Both drugs begin with the letter “V.” There were other technicalities argued.
Though a neurologist said the patient could have died from the brain injury in any case, it was quickly discarded as a viable defense.
Vaught’s did not hide her sorrow. In the interview with law enforcement, she stated she “probably just killed a patient.” When she appeared in front of the nursing board in 2021, she admitted that she allowed herself to become “distracted.” She failed the most basic of all tests in not double checking the labeling on the drug.
At that time, she said: “I know the reason this patient is no longer here is because of me…there won’t ever be a day that goes by that I don’t think about what I did.”
Ethics doesn’t sit in bias and judgment—ethics demands we give weight to all of the facts.
The patient died due to neglect and the complacency that can strike anyone in any job, especially a job that is pressurized and stress-filled. The nurse admitted her mistake. There are no gray areas as to that point. In the moment she disregarded her training and her patient-care responsibilities.
Should the nurse have been tried through the courts? There are pro and con arguments. Had the nurse gone before only the professional licensing board, she would have most likely lost her license. Would that have been enough? Is her life-long guilt enough? Or, should the family have extracted their pound of flesh?
Having presented keynote talks in front of many medical professional audiences, virtually everyone I have spoken with on a confidential basis, will admit to patient care mistakes over a career of patient care. They may not have been as dramatic or severe, but mistakes nonetheless.
When RaDonda Vaught leaves prison, she will still feel guilt and the patient will still be dead. What will have been gained?
Have we reached our limits?
Should the nurse have stood trial by herself? Or, has nursing become so pressurized, so unrelenting, so thankless and underpaying, that “winning” is merely making it through a shift? If so, who is responsible for that? Without denying the obvious, that a patient died due to complacency, who in the healthcare system is stepping up to take RaDonda Vaught’s case to the public, the media and to the government itself?
For, in the end, more mistakes will be made because the system, in part, is unethically complacent as well.
LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS!
