A nurse was criminally convicted because she accidentally administered the wrong medication which ended up causing that patient's death. But criminally punishing nurses for mistakes could lead to the death of more patients. If a nurse realizes that she has made a mistake, by reporting the mistake it could save the life of the patient. The doctors would immediately know what was wrong and how to try to treat the patient. But if a nurse fears there may be criminal charges for her mistake, she might choose not to immediately tell anyone. If she doesn't tell anyone, they might not find out what caused the patient to die, or they might not know who it was who administered the medication. Should nurses really be criminally punished for mistakes? And even if punishing them means more patients will die who otherwise might not? The moment nurse RaDonda Vaught realized she had given a patient the wrong medication, she rushed to the doctors working to revive 75-year-old Charlene Murphey and told them what she had done. Within hours, she made a full report of her mistake to the Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Murphey died the next day, on December 27, 2017. A jury found Vaught guilty of criminally negligent homicide and gross neglect. That verdict - and the fact that Vaught was charged at all - worries patient safety and nursing groups that have worked for years to move hospital culture away from cover-ups, blame and punishment, and toward the honest reporting of mistakes. Nurses: Guilty verdict for dosing mistake could cost lives - ABC News (go.com), Travis Loller, March 30, 2022
For once, we agree. The procedures in some hospitals belong in the Stone Age. The best are using digital information that will inform a caregiver of a mistake before it is made.
That sounds like you are going off on another controversial topic. I am not sure I agree with you there. I'm pretty skeptical about how much going digital would reduce mistakes.
Its an odd call. I'd have to hear the other side of this story. I wonder why the DA felt this case deserved prosecution.
My question is this. A doctor could be charged for the same gross negligence, and convicted. What is so special about nurses again? Are they not required to be trained and certified medical professionals now?
Thing is the nurse is often at the end of a long line of mistakes Physician, pharmacist nurse Often though it is the nurse who is blamed as they are the end of the process One of the biggest causes of errors though is NEVER included in the process charts above Look alike/sound alike medications And THAT goes directly back to the pharmaceutical companies And THAT does not even include the errors from sustained release versus immediate release medication Let’s us START with the name on sustained release medications are almost exactly the same as immediate release and the fact there is non standard phrasing with sustained release(SR), which may be referred to as ER (Extended Release) MR (Modified Release) or CR (Controlled Release) or even XR depending on the whim of the drug marketing side of the drug company. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3161798/ Multiple drug errors each year could be avoided by a) standardising medication modification names B) re naming/ relabelling look alike sound alike medications C) Having slightly different formulations of the medication so that one contains a slightly different amount to the other I.e. The extended release could be 201mg rather than 200 for the immediate release so there is a secondary trigger D) use “Tall man” lettering with all medication labelling eg amiODARone But mostly - make sure the nursing staff are not “hassled” during medication administration and that nurse patient ratios are based on science not the whim of some accountant
In any job, a small number of mistakes are going to be inevitable, or at least have a small chance of happening. Human beings are not perfect. The real question is how to deal with that. Nurses especially are often overworked in many hospitals, have more patients than they can count, sometimes are required to work 12 hour shifts. I know this can be a life or death matter, but I don't think it's fair to put all the blame on the nurse for that. Almost any human being put in that situation would have a small chance of committing an accidental mistake.
So, make them carry malpractice like a doctor does. Criminal negligence however, isn't something that is lightly charged, I think. Obviously for that level of criminal charge to have been levied, the law must have defined that actions as sufficient to meet the charge. Perhaps modify the law, But at the same time, we do have example of nurses who kill folks on purpose, so you might want to also consider that problem at the same time.
The law doesn't actually define it, exactly. A lot of stupid people just have an idea that they can pass laws and then the courts will somehow "figure it out". Yes, not so simple is it? You know why this is a problem? Because real-world situations are often more complicated than the stupid laws anticipate. A specific law does not exist for every situation. So prosecutors and judges are expected to try to "figure it out". Dealing with problems is not so simple. No disrespect intended to you, but you yourself demonstrate this level of mental laziness, because you have offered up no example of a specific law that would address these situations. Already existing laws do not anticipate every type of situation, like this one.
If this is the hole story, then thats not good. People shouldn't be punished for honest mistakes just because they were willing to step into positions where honest mistakes can have lethal consequences. Don't hospitals typically have a pretty potent team of malpractice lawyers?
"Vaught went to the automatic cabinet that released medications and realized that Murphey’s prescription had not been sent over. She typed in “ve” and selected the first medication that came up, which was vecuronium bromide, a paralytic." she was wrong, and technically it was negligent homicide and gross neglect it's like with a car, sometimes it's just an accident, but I understand others can die or be harmed over these accidents, in this case sadly someone died it's a tough one, what kinda sentence we talking about here accidentally hit a construction worker in some states is a mandatory 10 years, should truckers be charged? I can feel sorry for these people and understand what they did took a life, sad for both the nurse and the patient why was this auto vendor giving out this stuff without a prescription, that seems to be a huge error too https://www.verywellhealth.com/paralytic-drugs-explained-3157132 "A paralytic medication is a neuromuscular blocking agent, a powerful muscle relaxant used to prevent muscle movement during surgical procedures or critical care. "
Nurses were traveling from around the country to protest outside the courtroom in Nashville where a former Tennessee nurse was scheduled to be sentenced for causing the death of a patient. Vaught's conviction has become a rallying point for many nurses who were already fed up with poor working conditions exacerbated by the pandemic. Some have left bedside nursing for administrative positions while others have left the profession all together, saying the risk of going to prison for a mistake has made nursing intolerable. Nurses to protest sentencing in Tennessee patient-death case - StarTribune.com
I did read the statement of prosecuting attorney Glenn Funk regarding the Redonda Vaught conviction, but disagree with it. The prosecuting attorney seems to be extremely ignorant about actual realistic working conditions concerning procedures for nurses in hospitals. The prosecutor's statement tries to make the impression that this was an obvious case of recklessness, but it seems to me everything that nurse allegedly did is not that abnormal for the types of things nurses normally do on the job. Nurses are under extreme stress and excessive workloads and many commonly cut corners as a result. The nurse in this case did override the computer system that would have prevented the accident, but that is very common, nurses have to do that very frequently since the computer system often has many problems. It was probably instinctual for her to override the instructions on the computer and she wouldn't have thought too much about that. Nurses have to do that type of thing several times a week. The vial did have a clear warning label, but warning labels are everywhere. Nurses see warning labels on the medications they administer all the time. Nurses are administering so much medication so frequently they just become desensitized to the warning labels. It is entirely plausible that she may not have realized what she was doing and that this might not be such a clear case of obvious recklessness.
Sounds like this same reasoning could apply to police officers too. (Oh, isn't there so much irony there... because I bet the people that support this nurse the most, being on one political side, are unlikely to give that same support to police officers who end up causing a death through a little easily made mistake with a suspect who was resisting)
Latest update: the nurse has been sentenced to three years of probation. She was convicted of "gross neglect". The judge said Vaught will receive judicial diversion, which is a way for first-time offenders to have their charges dropped and their records expunged after successfully completing probation. Prosecutors had argued against diversion, although they were not opposed to probation. Some of the victim's relatives had told the court during the hearing they did not want jail time for Vaught, including the victim's son. The victim's husband, however, did want her to serve a prison sentence. The crowd of nurses who were protesting outside cheered, cried and hugged after hearing the sentence. Though many were disappointed that she faced any criminal penalties at all. It looks like the female nurses all got very emotional over this case.
We already handle nurse malpractice without imprisoning them for mistakes. Why do we need to modify the law? Why can't we just use the existing system?
