On March 25, 2022, a jury found nurse RaDonda Vaught guilty of criminally negligent homicide and felony abuse of an impaired adult. The case involved a fatal medication error that occurred on December 26, 2017, while Vaught worked as a registered nurse at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.1 Following the conviction, there was an avalanche of reactions from both within and outside of the nursing profession.
A statement by the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) described the conviction as a dangerous precedent that ignores decades of safety research.2 The American Nurses’ Association released a statement that noted, “We are deeply distressed by this verdict and the harmful ramifications of criminalizing the honest reporting of mistakes.”3 The American Organization for Nursing Leadership asserted criminal prosecutions for unintentional acts are the wrong approach, adding nurses should be encouraged to report errors so that prevention strategies can be identified and...
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