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

Here's the details of what happened. By the way...for the SEC tie-in...this happened at Vanderbilt Hospital.

The patient had a subdermal hematoma on her head that was causing headaches and vision loss. She was alert, awake and improving. They were going to do a full body scan, and she suffered from claustrophobia, so they were giving her versed to relax.

The nurse went to get the versed in the electronic medical cabinet, and nothing came up on her electronic search for the drug. She overrode the system to allow it to search for more powerful drugs and did a name search typing in the first two letters. After typing "Ve" verconium came up. She pulled the Verconium, and gave it to the patient, who lost consciousness and never recovered. They removed her from the ventilator the net day because there was little to no hope for improvement.

Also...this nurse only graduated from Nursing school in 2014 and became an RN in 2015, but she is 37. It looks like she was a realtor who decided to go to college, got her nursing degree and killed a patient within 2 years of starting work as a nurse.

My wife is an experienced ICU nurse and believes that this woman should be held personally accountable. She said this 'mix-up' is the inexcusable type.

I get it. The whole thing is screwed. I don't give a shite either way because she's 41 and is retiring in 4 months. I'm already retired.

I think you're going to see a lot of pushback by nurses, because they don't want that level of oversight. Well, I'm sorry, but when it comes to drug administration, you need to be a responsible person. You're the one pushing the med, not the doctor. You need to be aware of what you're giving. If it's a sedative, like Versed, you at least need to monitor the patient at some basic level.

She didn't even do that. She gave the wrong drug, and then ignored them. That kind of shite is criminal. There's things that could have been done to save that person. It isn't like the moment she gave it, they died. There's a lapse of basic patient care that happened there.

Yeah, there's going to be nurses that refuse to do their jobs now. I'm sorry, but frick you nurses. If you're going to pretend like this could happen to anybody, then you're a piece of shite. This isn't something that just happens. It's gross negligence, and it should be punished.

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Not every general floor nurse knows the difference between sedatives and paraytics. ICU nurses give these all the time.

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As an ICU RN I do agree that general floor nurses really have no clue about critical care, major issue here is giving them access to these meds via override. These meds aren't even available to floor nurses at my hospital.

Even then the nurse in question made some critical mistakes that go beyond just using the wrong med, once you give that med it is noticable that your pt is no longer breathing rather quickly. Even if she was giving versed she should be checking vitals and assessing her pt frequently.

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The nurse went to get the versed in the electronic medical cabinet, and nothing came up on her electronic search for the drug. She overrode the system to allow it to search for more powerful drugs and did a name search typing in the first two letters. After typing "Ve" verconium came up. She pulled the Verconium, and gave it to the patient, who lost consciousness and never recovered. They removed her from the ventilator the net day because there was little to no hope for improvement.

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If true, that's not an honest mistake that's criminal negligence.

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The nurse went to get the versed in the electronic medical cabinet, and nothing came up on her electronic search for the drug. She overrode the system to allow it to search for more powerful drugs and did a name search typing in the first two letters. After typing "Ve" verconium came up.

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This comes back to the systemic issue. If the medication isn't listed in the Pyxis as Versed but instead midazolam then the order should have been for midazolam and not Versed and/or the Pyxis should have had the correct generic cross-reference.

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

That is not the type of woman i envisioned based on the name RaDonda

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I can't speak to the specifics around an override, but I'd imagine you should need a 2nd person, maybe a person in leadership, to approve the override.

Was she able to just do the override by herself with no approval?

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She was able to override herself, you do not need second person.

This is by design to bypass system for emergent cases.