As I near the end of my college career, I am months away from becoming a nurse. That means taking care of real people, saving lives, and hopefully bringing lives into the world as well. I am excited for what the future holds but recently after a nurse was convicted of gross neglect of an impaired adult and negligent homicide, I am scared to enter the practice.
The case of RaDonda Vaught has brought many questions regarding the future of nursing to light. Vaught is a former registered nurse who accidentally gave the wrong medication to a patient in 2017, which prosecutors are saying was the cause of a 75-year-old patient’s death. Vaught was told to override a medication for this patient, meaning the patient was not prescribed this medication at that time but she could still take it out of the medication machine. She was supposed to be giving Versed, which is a medication to help relax a patient before a procedure or minor surgery, which in this case was an MRI. Instead of what she thought was Versed, turned out to be vecuronium, which is a powerful paralytic drug usually used during general anesthesia to allow for intubation and muscle relaxation. This is what’s known as a “medication error” in healthcare and medicine. All medication errors as well as “near miss” errors should be reported. As soon as Vaught realized the medication error, it was too late, and the patient was declared brain dead. It is not evident that the medication vecuronium is what killed the patient. Many patients receive vecuronium all of the time and are just fine. It was also stated that the cause of death could have been a brain bleed, we really do not know for sure. Vaught still did the right thing and reported the medication error and followed all necessary policies and processes proceeding the event.
While absolutely tragic, medication errors happen all of the time. Even so much as giving Tylenol at the wrong time can constitute a medication error. In nursing school, we are trained to administer medications following a strict process known as the medication rights to help prevent medication errors. Unfortunately, this is not realistic for nurses all around the world. Hospitals are short-staffed, requiring nurses to work longer hours and take on more patients, making their work extremely challenging. This causes nurses to sometimes “cut corners” to try to make their jobs a little less stressful. Nurses try their best with what they are given to provide the best care for their patients, but sometimes even the best is not enough.
I am not writing this to say what Vaught did was okay, because unfortunately, there was, in fact, a medication error, and a patient died mostly likely due to that cause. Vaught admitted she was distracted while pulling the medication and did not recognize that it was the wrong medication after countless red flags. She was eventually fired from the hospital due to the error, but the board of nursing concluded that she could keep her license and could continue to practice. The patient’s family while devastated at the outcome, did not press charges against Vaught. It wasn’t until an anonymous tip led to the arrest of Vaught.
This outcome may have just set a very large precedent against nurses, making it very easy for a medication error to become a criminal charge and lead to jail time. With this could come unreported medications as nurses would basically be incriminating themselves, which in turn, will decrease patient safety. The entire world of medicine is heartbroken and shocked by this outcome. It has shed light onto a corrupt and messed up system, which is healthcare. I hope that this case helps to bring about safer staffing ratios and improvements to the system but unfortunately, I don’t think it will.
All opinions are my own and do not reflect those of Her Campus Media.