re: Thoughts on the RaDonda Vaught (nurse convicted of negligent homicide) trial?

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I am not excusing the mistake but it appears to go far beyond the nurse in this case.

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I think the problem here is that you have a nurse that clearly does not know her pharmacology, nor does she have any critical thinking skills.

I'm not saying she should know every drug in the book, but my god, at least ask someone for help. Surely, someone in that unit could have helped her do the right thing. She just didn't ask.

IMO, nurses that are defending her, are hurting their profession. My thought on it is this: If we're going to let this go (which was the initial plan of the hospital) then we might as well let CNAs push drugs too. Hell, let the attendants do it. Let the patients get their own drugs out of the Pyxis. It's so stupid. There's a reason RNs are trusted to give these meds. It's because they have to demonstrate competency and problem solving capacity to handle situations like the one of a drug not showing up in the Pyxis.

I just have no sympathy for this person. I find her actions to be unconscionable. If the hospital had let this go, she would have continued to work as a nurse (maybe not there, but somewhere) and inflicted god only knows how much harm on innocent people.

People need to take this seriously, because there are a lot more just like her in the system.

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I wonder what the Venn Diagram of nurses cheering for police to be criminally charged for accidents vs. getting mad at this is. It has to be pretty close together.

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Everyone can shite on the nurses, that's what OT does.... But this criminalization isn't exclusive to them which is far more concerning.

i need a lot more info than presented here.

was the order written out and clearly presented to her or was this a verbal order from superior who may have said the wrong thing?

Why is the vecuronium, a paralytic agent, not under stricter guidance by the pharmacy and key checks in place of dispensing. Paralytics are only used in very specific cases. VERSED is midazolam, a moderately strong sedative/anesthetic, they arent even close.

what other checks and balances were in place and skirted?

Woopsies

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Sounds like they won't administer meds until they documentation to back it up. Sounds like a good practice to me. Very easily a Dr. could miss prescribe a med, the nurse administer it and then the Dr. claim he ordered something else. I know the time that documentation takes in a ER situation could create other issues.

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That's the slippery slope.

While I agree this nurse's act was so egregious, I can't really be against criminal charges.

But that is the issue, if a nurse can be criminally charged, you can't blame them one bit if they only want to administer a drug if an order has been placed, no verbal orders. THe issue is in emergent situations, you don't have time to wait for a Dr to put the order in before grabbing the med to administer.

No that’s not what everyone is saying.

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We as a society have deemed extreme negligence goes beyond that. If I do certain negligent acts as an accountant, I am civilly and criminally liable, and my job isn't even life or death.

Same with a lot of professions out there, why should nurses be different?

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Because certain "professions" don't want the accountability required of professionals, just the pay and prestige.

So, she was a relatively new nurse (in practice about 2 years), was training a student, and was given a verbal order for IV midazolam stat? I wonder what the level of chaos was in the unit where she was working.

New nurses are often thrown into situations of poor training, heavy workloads, and poorly managed units. A lot of nurses look back to their first jobs and think “Thank God i didn’t kill anyone”, because they were probably thrown in over their heads in the beginning. To an experienced and competent nurse, this error is inexcusable, but how was this inexperienced and incompetent one allowed to do this on her own, with no checks or balances?

She should have known better and definitely a fatal error such as this should be met with a loss of her license (forever) and the family should win a large civil judgment from the hospital, but i disagree with jail and criminal charges. Why even have licensing boards and civil actions if you are just going to have everyone arrested and jailed like common criminals?

Same with cops, too, btw. For example, the lady who reached for her gun instead of her taser. A fatal error made in the heat of the moment, but not intentional. In going through the motions of what she thought was correct performance of her job, she made a wrong move.