JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
In 2022, a nurse in Tennessee made national news when she was found guilty of negligent homicide for a medication error that killed a patient. She served three years' probation. Now RaDonda Vaught is back in the spotlight. As Blake Farmer at member station WPLN reports, she's become a sought-after speaker on patient safety.
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BLAKE FARMER, BYLINE: RaDonda Vaught is bottle feeding an underweight lamb. She says she'll never care for human patients again.
RADONDA VAUGHT: It's really funny how much of my nursing education has translated into being a good farmer.
FARMER: She turned to farming full-time after losing her nursing license. Through a series of mistakes, she killed a hospitalized patient in 2017 at Vanderbilt Medical Center. After a criminal trial, she was convicted of homicide in 2022. Nurses from around the country raised money to pay her legal bills. Some showed up at the courthouse holding signs like, mistake does not equal murder.
CELIA PRINCE: This is someone that could have been me. I think every nurse keeps saying it's their worst nightmare.
FARMER: Celia Prince (ph) was one of hundreds of nurses who traveled from across the country to be at Vaught's sentencing. It's rare for a nurse to be prosecuted for an on-the-job mistake. Many nurses were relieved when Vaught avoided prison time. She spent most of her probation on the farm where she raises sheep and chickens. Within a year, she got her first speaking request.
VAUGHT: It was emotionally overwhelming and a little cathartic, but I'm going to tell you, you could have heard a pin drop.
FARMER: On stage, she doesn't shy away from the painful and embarrassing details. A doctor ordered a sedative called Versed to calm a patient before an imaging procedure. Through a series of mistakes, Vaught administered a powerful paralytic, vecuronium - warning labels ignored, a dispensing system overridden, and an anxious patient left alone. Then the frantic and failed attempts to revive the patient, an elderly woman named Charlene Murphey.
NPR reached out to some of Murphey's family members, but they did not comment on Vaught's new speaking career. Others have been critical. On social messaging boards, like Reddit, some nurses have said Vaught is profiting from tragedy. She knows how it might look.
VAUGHT: It wasn't something that was even on my radar to think about. The opportunities just kept presenting themselves. People kept reaching out.
FARMER: Vaught has turned her story into a cautionary tale she hopes will make hospitals safer. Last year, she had paid speaking engagements with 22 organizations representing doctors, pharmacists and nurses. She's now part of a speakers' bureau, which lists her minimum fee at $5,000. She delivers sharp critiques about a hospital culture that she says is quick to blame. Here she is speaking to the California Hospital Association.
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VAUGHT: People feeling afraid to talk about mistakes and come forward when they happen - it doesn't save people. It kills them.
CHARLENE VERGA: I've seen her a few times now in person, and I've never seen RaDonda tell the story and not be upset.
FARMER: Charlene Verga says she invited Vaught to be the keynote speaker for the Massachusetts Nurses Association. The meeting was part of ongoing learning that's necessary to improve patient safety. After Vaught's trial, the largest manufacturers of medication-dispensing cabinets made a change. The machines now require workers to type in more than just the first few letters to pull up a list of drugs, which was an issue in Vaught's case. Culture also seems to be shifting, Verga says. The state legislature in neighboring Kentucky passed a law providing nurses immunity for similar incidents.
VERGA: This happening caused this ripple effect of systemic change literally across the country.
FARMER: It took the ugly details being revealed during a criminal trial, but Verga says RaDonda Vaught is now transforming her mistakes into a teaching moment. For NPR News, I'm Blake Farmer in Nashville.
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That story comes from NPR's partnership with WPLN and KFF Health News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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