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I would like to hear your thoughts on this


Parr8hed

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I feel like more information is needed to better understand what safety systems she overrode to administer the wrong medication in a lethal dose, and how she did that. If it was easy to do in a distracted manner, then 1) the system needs to be fixed and 2) this should be civil. But if it would be impossible to do without the intent an to give the wrong medicine, then criminal proceedings would seem appropriate. 

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40 minutes ago, Prophet Zacharia said:

I feel like more information is needed to better understand what safety systems she overrode to administer the wrong medication in a lethal dose, and how she did that. If it was easy to do in a distracted manner, then 1) the system needs to be fixed and 2) this should be civil. But if it would be impossible to do without the intent an to give the wrong medicine, then criminal proceedings would seem appropriate. 

^^ This.  I'd need to know how much "overriding" was done to more accurately determine intent or negligence or accident.  

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You are a health professional, if you screw up, off with your head.  No mistakes allowed in health, ever.

Does that answer the question?  I don't even think there is a question there at all, so I just thought that those fuckers are professionals and get a professional's salary for doing a professional job with life or death consequences, so you have to do it right.  Maybe if there was more context, but the article really didn't say anything other than she gave the wrong medication and was found guilty.

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2 hours ago, Prophet Zacharia said:

I feel like more information is needed to better understand what safety systems she overrode to administer the wrong medication in a lethal dose, and how she did that. If it was easy to do in a distracted manner, then 1) the system needs to be fixed and 2) this should be civil. But if it would be impossible to do without the intent an to give the wrong medicine, then criminal proceedings would seem appropriate. 

So as I understand it was vecuronium. She gave that instead of versed. Vecuronium has to be reconstituted. Versed does not. Pretty big fuck up. 

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59 minutes ago, JerrySTL said:

WoJSTL says that she's glad that she is retired from nursing. The strain was getting to her. She still has nightmares about giving the wrong medications. Plus 12-hour shifts turning into 14-hour shifts three days in a row were too much for a 60 year-old.

I hear ya. 

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My thought on the matter is if someone is grossly negligent in the performance of their job and the negligence leads to a death the person is subject to criminal charges.

I don’t see why healthcare would be exempt from this. A cop accidentally pulled her service weapon instead of her taser & killed a person.  Nobody is saying she should’ve  faced civil charges only.   

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Vaught has said she was “distracted” when she overrode a safety feature on the automated medication dispenser, failing to catch a number of red flags between the time she grabbed the medication and gave it to the patient.

One would have to understand the details here to decide if it's a criminal or civil matter and, if civil, whether it was her fault or the fault of the hospitals standard procedures.

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1 hour ago, Load of Butts said:

You are a health professional, if you screw up, off with your head.  No mistakes allowed in health, ever.

Does that answer the question?  I don't even think there is a question there at all, so I just thought that those fuckers are professionals and get a professional's salary for doing a professional job with life or death consequences, so you have to do it right.  Maybe if there was more context, but the article really didn't say anything other than she gave the wrong medication and was found guilty.

...have you ever worked in health care ? You need to get a grip on the reality of what has happened to the American health care system, in terms of staffing and patient care workloads.

2 hours ago, JerrySTL said:

WoJSTL says that she's glad that she is retired from nursing. The strain was getting to her. She still has nightmares about giving the wrong medications. Plus 12-hour shifts turning into 14-hour shifts three days in a row were too much for a 60 year-old.

...her and every other nurse with enough time in to retire, and some who just moved on to some job that was less impossible.

1 hour ago, Parr8hed said:

I hear ya. 

...I haven't done this stuff in a long time, and it was pretty fucked up in terms of "errors" back when I was doing it.  Staffing was a lot less critical then, and there was still some semblance of trying to balance workloads with staffing.

1 hour ago, Square Wheels said:

You will never fix a flawed system by punishing an individual.

I heard of a case where a nurse made a medication mistake on a NICU patient.  The patient died.  The nurse was fired.  She killed herself likely from the grief of harming the baby.

People rarely cause problems, systems usually let them down.  Was the training adequate?  Were they overworked / understaffed?  Was the equipment properly calibrated?  I can ask 100 questions.  I will find 99 things wrong with your process.  Only then would I ask was this done intentionally.

...yeah. I don't think they convicted her of intentionally inflicting death. That's why the charge she was convicted of was criminally negligent homicide (thus without malice). It still seems to be a way for Vanderbilt to fob off their liability onto an employee they decided to leave twisting in the wind.  Which is not uncommon. I saw a tonne of it when I worked in fire.

Every time some poor civilian got offed in a collision with some of our more horrendous fire equipment, the driver of the equipment was inevitably hung out to dry here.

We used to run a truck downtown (busy station, lots of calls, lots of traffic) that was designed as an airport fire rig.  It was huge, cumbersome, hydraulic suspension because of the weight. and every time you went around a corner, it flopped over from one side to the other. Truly terrifying to drive in traffic, and not all that stoppable either, once it got rolling.  WE had the fucking thing because some chief in purchasing and equipment decided it would be great for high rise fires.

In the time it was in service, we had zero high rise fires, and it probably responded to ten or twenty thousand first aid calls.  I had one friend who simply refused to drive it, so they transferred him to a punishment station (up all night in the ghetto, running calls for 24 hours every shift.) Picture this ripping through downtown traffic, then tell me who ought to bear the liability when something goes wrong and kills someone.

p1099939516-4.jpg

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48 minutes ago, Wilbur said:

 Humans make mistakes but when safeguards are in place but over-ridden, the negligence of doing so is inexcusable. 

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Tuesday we heard testimony from Vanderbilt Medical Center employees admitting that they would have to override the system at times for medicine. That’s what RaDonda Vaught said she did the day she gave a patient a fatal dose of the wrong medication in 2017.

https://www.wkrn.com/news/emotional-day-of-testimony-on-day-1-of-nurse-homicide-trial/

 

...safety systems that need to be routinely overridden because of software glitches are not safety systems. They are some other kind of system.

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I'd have to know more to decide if I thought the negligence was so grossly negligent as to be criminal.  Negligence in certain professions can be worse because of the consequences, but I've also never been a medical professional dealing with an overload of patients, many of whom are having (or think they're having) real life and death issues that deserve quick attention.  I'd want to know more about the processes and safeguards, and what may have been over-ridden to evaluate the situation.   Simple negligence can have tragic consequences without it rising to criminal, but I could imagine a level of reckless disregard that could be criminal, but I'd need a lot more information.

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The case has since changed protocols and safeguards at Vanderbilt Medical Center as to how medications are dispensed, as well as, other hospitals across the country.

https://www.wkrn.com/news/local-news/nashville/radonda-vaught/verdict-reaction-in-ex-vanderbilt-nurse-trial/

...because they were inadequate at the time of this death.

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I am going to have to research a bit more before I offer my opinion.  I have multiple thoughts going through my head that range from this person being an idiot that deserves this to the fact that she is a victim of modern medicine. 

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2 hours ago, Parr8hed said:

I am going to have to research a bit more before I offer my opinion.  I have multiple thoughts going through my head that range from this person being an idiot that deserves this to the fact that she is a victim of modern medicine. 

It's a lot like the one with the gun instead of taser.  You wonder how she managed to defeat all the poka-yoke like (gotta love that term!) - different color, always on a different side, training, feel, etc., but you can still emphasize that she was REALLY punished for a stoopid mistake. Of course the victim and his family were punished more.  Very sad all around.  Mistakes suck.

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  • 1 month later...

Sentencing today and the woman got no jail time.  She qualified for a diversion program, so if she meets the terms of her probation, her record can be cleared down the road.  But she's lost her license for good.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/05/13/radonda-vaught-gets-no-jail-time-medication-error-led-death-patient/9761895002/

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Just the hurt I have watched my family go through is horrible. It’s absolutely horrible," Rhonda Murphey said. "And I try to be strong for them but at times it’s hard."

Both Michael and Chandra said Charlene Murphey wouldn't have wanted jail time for Vaught, eliciting applause and cheers from supporters outside the courthouse and a group in the courthouse's overflow room.

Chandra Murphey, however, said she has never heard an apology from Vaught. Vaught's crying intensified with those words.

 

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