RaDonda Vaught and her lawyer, Peter Strianse, pay attention as verdicts are learn at her trial in Nashville, Tenn., on Friday, March 25. The jury discovered Vaught, a former nurse, responsible of criminally negligent murder and gross neglect of an impaired grownup within the demise of a affected person to whom she by accident gave the flawed treatment.
Nicole Hester/The Tennessean/AP
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Nicole Hester/The Tennessean/AP
RaDonda Vaught and her lawyer, Peter Strianse, pay attention as verdicts are learn at her trial in Nashville, Tenn., on Friday, March 25. The jury discovered Vaught, a former nurse, responsible of criminally negligent murder and gross neglect of an impaired grownup within the demise of a affected person to whom she by accident gave the flawed treatment.
Nicole Hester/The Tennessean/AP
RaDonda Vaught, a former nurse criminally prosecuted for a fatal drug error in 2017, was convicted of gross neglect of an impaired grownup and negligent murder on Friday after a three-day trial in Nashville, Tenn., that gripped nurses throughout the nation. Vaught faces three to 6 years in jail for neglect and one to 2 years for negligent murder as a defendant with no prior convictions, in response to sentencing pointers supplied by the Nashville district lawyer’s workplace. Vaught is scheduled to be sentenced May 13, and her sentences are more likely to run concurrently, mentioned the district lawyer’s spokesperson, Steve Hayslip. Vaught was acquitted of reckless murder. Criminally negligent murder was a lesser cost included underneath reckless murder. Vaught’s trial has been intently watched by nurses and medical professionals throughout the U.S., many of whom fear it may set a precedent of criminalizing medical errors. Medical errors are typically dealt with by skilled licensing boards or civil courts, and legal prosecutions like Vaught’s case are exceedingly uncommon. Janie Harvey Garner, the founder of Show Me Your Stethoscope, a nursing group on Facebook with greater than 600,000 members, worries the conviction can have a chilling impact on nurses disclosing their very own errors or close to errors, which may have a detrimental impact on the standard of affected person care.
“Health care simply modified endlessly,” she mentioned after the decision. “You can not belief folks to inform the reality as a result of they are going to be incriminating themselves.” The American Nurses Association issued an announcement Wednesday whereas the trial was ongoing, saying that nurses imagine this case units “a harmful precedent.” “Transparent, simply, and well timed reporting mechanisms of medical errors with out the worry of criminalization protect secure affected person care environments,” the assertion reads.
Vaught, 38, of Bethpage, Tenn., was arrested in 2019 and charged with reckless murder and gross neglect of an impaired grownup in reference to the killing of Charlene Murphey, who died at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in late December 2017. The neglect cost stemmed from allegations that Vaught didn’t correctly monitor Murphey after she was injected with the flawed drug. Murphey, 75, of Gallatin, Tenn., was admitted to Vanderbilt for a mind harm. At the time of the error, her situation was enhancing, and he or she was being ready for discharge from the hospital, in response to courtroom testimony and a federal investigation report. Murphey was prescribed a sedative, Versed, to calm her earlier than being scanned in a big MRI-like machine. Vaught was tasked to retrieve Versed from a computerized treatment cupboard however as an alternative grabbed a robust paralyzer, vecuronium. According to an investigation report filed in her courtroom case, the nurse missed a number of warning indicators as she withdrew the flawed drug — together with that Versed is a liquid however vecuronium is a powder — after which injected Murphey and left her to be scanned. By the time the error was found, Murphey was brain-dead.
During the trial, prosecutors painted Vaught as an irresponsible and uncaring nurse who ignored her coaching and deserted her affected person. Assistant District Attorney Chad Jackson likened Vaught to a drunk driver who killed a bystander however mentioned the nurse was “worse” as a result of it was as if she had been “driving with [her] eyes closed.” “The immutable truth of this case is that Charlene Murphey is lifeless as a result of RaDonda Vaught couldn’t hassle to concentrate to what she was doing,” Jackson mentioned. Vaught’s lawyer, Peter Strianse, argued that his consumer made an sincere mistake that didn’t represent against the law and have become a “scapegoat” for systemic issues associated to treatment cupboards at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in 2017. But Vanderbilt officers countered on the stand. Terry Bosen, (*2*) pharmacy treatment security officer, testified that the hospital had some technical issues with treatment cupboards in 2017 however that they had been resolved weeks earlier than Vaught pulled the flawed drug for Murphey. In his closing argument, Strianse focused the reckless murder cost, arguing that his consumer couldn’t have “recklessly” disregarded warning indicators if she earnestly believed she had the best drug and saying there was “appreciable debate” over whether or not vecuronium really killed Murphey. During the trial, Eli Zimmerman, a Vanderbilt neurologist, testified it was “within the realm of chance” that Murphey’s demise was induced completely by her mind harm. Additionally, Davidson County Chief Medical Examiner Feng Li testified that though he decided Murphey died from vecuronium, he could not confirm how a lot of the drug she really acquired. Li mentioned a small dose might not have been deadly. “I do not imply to be facetious,” Strianse mentioned of the medical examiner’s testimony, “nevertheless it type of appeared like some newbie CSI episode — solely with out the science.” Vaught didn’t testify. On the second day of the trial, prosecutors performed an audio recording of Vaught’s interview with regulation enforcement officers by which she admitted to the drug error and mentioned she “most likely simply killed a affected person.” During a separate continuing earlier than the Tennessee Board of Nursing final yr, Vaught testified that she allowed herself to turn into “complacent” and “distracted” whereas utilizing the treatment cupboard and didn’t double-check which drug she had withdrawn regardless of a number of alternatives. “I do know the explanation this affected person is not right here is as a result of of me,” Vaught advised the nursing board, beginning to cry. “There will not ever be a day that goes by that I do not take into consideration what I did.” KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a nationwide newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about well being points. It is an editorially impartial working program of KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation).
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/03/25/1088902487/former-nurse-found-guilty-in-accidental-injection-death-of-75-year-old-patient
