Ex-Vanderbilt nurse found guilty of a lesser charge in patient death case

A jury found the former nurse on trial for the death of a patient due to a drug mix-up guilty of criminally negligent homicide. Prosecutors had charged RaDonda Vaught with reckless homicide, which carries more potential jail time.

The case has been closely watched by nurses around the country who fear they could be prosecuted for medical mistakes. Vaught faced reporters after the verdict and repeated that she still bears responsibility for the death but expressed concerns about nurses trying to hide mistakes for fear of punishment.

“People are going to be leery about coming forward to tell the truth. But the reality is, everyone is accountable for their actions,” she said. “And I don’t think that the takeaway message here is not to be honest and truthful. I think the takeaway message here is that maybe we all have some areas where we can improve.”

Asked about what message the case sends to other nurses after the verdict came down, prosecutors said the facts of the case only pertain to one nurse and one incident.

On Dec. 26, 2017, Vaught was working at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and was supposed to give a 75-year-old patient from Gallatin the sedative Versed to calm her down before an imaging procedure. But she told investigators the electronic medicine cabinet wouldn’t give her the medication, which she later found out she should have been searching for under the generic name midazolam.

Instead, she retrieved vecuronium and injected the patient, despite multiple warnings about giving a paralytic agent (see full timeline here from Brett Kelman).

Vaught did not testify during the week-long trial. Jurors deliberated for four hours on Friday before reaching the verdict. She’s supposed to be sentenced in the coming weeks.

Vaught’s attorney, Peter Strianse, tried to make the case that Vanderbilt shared some of the blame. Even the Tennessee Department of Health determined VUMC “carried a heavy burden of responsibility” in the case, according to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations agent who testified. Vanderbilt was having trouble with the electronic cabinets that dispense medication, and nurses have said they were told to override the systems if they had to.

“I believe there were systemic issues at Vanderbilt University Medical Center that contributed to what happened here,” Strianse said Friday afternoon. “Obviously, the jury didn’t agree with me.”

A VUMC spokesperson said the hospital is not commenting on the trial’s outcome.

Correction: This story originally misspelled the generic name of the sedative Versed. It’s midazolam, not medazolam.