Nurses: Guilty Verdict for Dosing Mistake Could Cost Lives

RaDonda Vaught, a former Vanderbilt University Medical Center nurse charged with in the death of a patient, listens to the opening statements during her trial at Justice A.A. Birch Building in Nashville, Tenn., on March 22, 2022. Stephanie Amador/The Tennessean via AP, Pool

NASHVILLE, Tenn.—The moment nurse RaDonda Vaught realized she had given a patient the wrong medication, she rushed to the doctors working to revive 75-year-old Charlene Murphey and told them what she had done. Within hours, she made a full report of her mistake to the Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Murphey died the next day, on Dec. 27, 2017. On Friday, a jury found Vaught guilty of criminally negligent homicide and gross neglect.