For 4 and a half years, I have followed the RaDonda Vaught medication error that led to the unfortunate death of a human being. I am not alone. Nurses across the country have followed the case with anxiety and fear, knowing a guilty verdict might have the potential to challenge basic tenets of care.
According to Medscape Medical News, nurses are "raging and quitting" following the announcement of a guilty verdict for two felonies: criminally negligent homicide and gross neglect of an impaired adult.
Thousands of nurses have claimed they could arrive in Nashville on May 13, the day Vaught is to be sentenced, to protest the conviction. Others have stated they believe justice is being conducted, as their sympathies lie with the victim, Charlene Murphey, who died 12 hours after being unable to draw breath, paralyzed from the inadvertent dose of vecuronium given intravenously by her nurse.
How should we feel as clinicians? What does this guilty verdict mean for nurses across the country as Vaught waits to receive a sentence that could imprison her for up to 8 years, according to sentencing guidelines?
My belief is that it is understandable to feel passionately about this case, including what it could mean to an era of "just culture" that nursing organizations have promoted.
